As I was walking the treadmill on the weekend, The Quiet Man came on TCM. I love that movie, in no small part because I love films with great secondary characters, and in this one, we hit the jackpot with the Fitzgerald brothers, Victor McLaglen, Ward Bond and Mildred Natwick to name just a few. I've seen this probably twenty times and while there are some bits that aren't politically correct -- the line of dialogue "Here's a stick to beat the lovely lady with." being an example -- it's still a fun "fish out of water" romance. I didn't know until the introduction on the weekend that it was based on a short story that appeared in Saturday Evening Post magazine by Maurice Walsh.
Or that John Ford bought the film rights for $10.
Yes, you saw that right.
Ten bucks.
Man, oh, man, Maurice! You wuz robbed!
At least you got your name in the credits, so here's hoping it helped sell some of your books.
2 comments:
That's about $79.70 in today's dollars.
That's the funny thing about negotiations.
The author was selling a short story.
The director was buying a movie script.
Both thought they got a good deal
(or they wouldn't have made it)
I gather it took Ford agreeing to make a Western (Rio Grande) before they'd go for The Quiet Man, so it wasn't exactly a hot property at the time, either.
The other thing I thought was, I would have liked subscribing to that magazine.
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