Why This Movie Didn't Win Best Picture I Will Never Understand

Ladies and gentlemen, It's St. Patrick's Day.  Time to break out the green ties, the Irish jokes, and the Quiet Man DVD:

The YouTube clip provided is the epic donnybrook that climaxes the movie.  Legend has it the producing company Republic Pictures insisted on the movie having a 90-minute cut no excuses.  John Ford couldn't figure out how to cut anything else out of the story - that's how good the movie was turning out - so what he did was preview an uncut film to the studio heads.  Right at the 90-minute mark - somewhere within the first three punches thrown in the fight between Danaher and The Yank - the film ends.  "What the hell?" the studio heads cry out.  "Well, you wanted it 90 minutes long no matter what," Ford answered.  The studio heads dropped their insistence on it being 90 minutes long.

Which was a smart move by those studio heads.  Republic, which tended to work on low-budget thrillers and Westerns, received their only Best Picture nomination in studio history with The Quiet Man.

Still planning to make a visit to Cong, County Mayo, Ireland some day...