Director: Ron Howard
Writter: Bob Dolman , Ron Howard
Tom Plays: Joseph Donnelly
Status: ON DVD

Plot

A young man (Cruise) leaves Ireland with his landlord’s daughter (Kidman) after some trouble with her father…

Goofs

Continuity: During the land race scene, Joseph is carrying his flag on the back of his horse. The flag disappears and reappears between shots.

Continuity: When Steven challenges Joseph to a duel, he tosses a glove on Joseph’s chest and it lands on the floor beside him. In the next cut the glove is on his stomach.

Continuity: When Shannon and Joseph first go to meet the ward boss, Shannon is splattered in the face with blood. She wipes some of it away, but later in the scene, the blood is back on her face.

Continuity: Shannon falls off her horse into the muddy water, submerged nearly to her neck, yet when we next see her on her horse her white shirt is dry and pristine.

Continuity: Multiple shots of people firing more rounds than their weapons can hold.

Continuity: When Joseph brings Shannon to her family after she gets shot, she is seen lying on the couch facing left. The next time we see her, she is facing right.

Factual errors: As Joseph and Shannon step off the ship in America, vendors are selling American flags – the flags have all 50 stars on them.

Quotes

Joseph Donnelly: You’re a corker, Shannon. What a corker you are.

Joseph Donnelly: I have no wish to fight ya.

Joseph Donnelly: You arrogant bastard! You’re not in Ireland any more!

[about Grace] Shannon Christie: She’s got an awfully large Chest to be going to church.
Joseph Donnelly: Well, All Chests are equal in the eyes of God.

Joseph Donnelly: I tried to prove myself to you, But I know nothing of Books, or Alphabets, or Sun, or Moon, or… All I know is Joseph Loves Shannon

[to one of his drunken brothers who has just insulted him] Joseph Donnelly: There’s a goat over there. Go improve your love life.

Shannon Christie: No. Joseph, please don’t leave me. Please. I loved you. I loved you from the first time I saw you.
Joseph Donnelly [: I’ve often wondered about that.

[Joe Donnelly dies] Batey: God bless your soul Joe Donnelly…
[everyone is quiet, they turn and Joe comes back to life] Joseph Donnelly: SAINTS ALIVE! Da! We thought you were dead!
Joe Donnelly: I was, I came back to tell you something… you’re an odd one boy.
Joseph Donnelly: You came back to tell me I was odd?

Joseph Donnelly: [about Grace] She’s a dancer in the burley Q.
Shannon Christie: That’s not dancing. That’s kicking her knickers up. And I bet if you asked her to, she’d kick her knickers off.
Joseph Donnelly: I’m sure she would.
Shannon Christie: Has she?
Joseph Donnelly: Let me think… I can’t remember.
Shannon Christie: Well, think hard, Joseph! If there’s any brains left in your head!

Joseph Donnelly: [after a bad argument with Shannon] Shannon! Open this door!
[yells] Joseph Donnelly: Shannon!
Molly Kay: Why don’t you shag her and get it over with?
Joseph Donnelly: She’s my sister!
Molly Kay: And I’m your mother.

Joseph Donnelly: Tell me ya like my hat, Shannon!
Shannon Christie: But you’re not wearing a hat!
Joseph Donnelly: [yelling] Tell me ya like my hat, Shannon!

Shannon Christie: You’ll never win this duel with Steven. We’ve all seen you handle a gun. Boy, I am giving you your freedom!
Joseph Donnelly: I’m not going to a distant world. I’m of Ireland, and I’ll stay in Ireland until I die!
Shannon Christie: That’s in about five hours.

Shannon Christie: Pretend you love me.
Joseph Donnelly: I pretend I love you.
Shannon Christie: I pretend I love you, too.

Joseph Donnelly: On his death bed, my father told me he’d be watching me from up above. I wonder now if his spirit might be here, guiding me along.
Shannon Christie: If he bumps into Mr. McGuire up there, tell him I want my spoons back.


Shannon Christie: Look, you’ve got your land.
Joseph Donnelly: All the land in the world means nothing to me without you.

Coniff: I think the prettiest girl in the factory, the one with the prettiest hair, and the prettiest red hair, is Joseph’s sister – if you don’t mind me saying so Joseph.
Joseph Donnelly: Well, ya can say what you like lad. But I warn ya, that redhead has a bite that stings.
Flynn: [to Shannon] Get back to work!
Shannon Christie: Get your hands off me you ugly animal!
Flynn: That’ll cost you a day’s wage. Go ahead. Insult me again.
[Spits] Shannon Christie: [Weakly] Pig.
[Women laugh] Flynn: There goes tomorrow. Done?
Shannon Christie: [Looks over to Joseph, who jestures “No! Work!”, returns to work, but spins around] Take Friday as well, you spineless fraction of a man.
Joseph Donnelly: [Laughs and smiles] Bite lads. Bite.

Trivia

Director Ron Howard wasn’t happy with Nicole Kidman’s facial reaction during the shooting of the scene where her character lifts the bowl covering Joseph’s (her husband Tom Cruise’s) crotch. Without telling Kidman, he asked Cruise to remove his underwear. Howard got the reaction he wanted, and it appears in the film.

The first and last feature since Ryan’s Daughter to use the Super 65mm format. After the movie was completed, all remaining six Panavision Super 65mm were retired and kept away.

The dress that Shannon admires in the shop window in Boston is the same dress worn by Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen) in the last scene of Back to the Future Part III.

Three of ‘Ron Howard’ ‘s great-grandparents actually rode in the Great Land Rush of 1893, as depicted in the film.

The recreation of the Great Land Rush involved 800 extras, 400 horses and 200 wagons. The extras were all recruited from a re-enactment society called The Re-enactors.

Although he had over 17 years of experience in the business in 1992, this film marked the first time that dialect coach Tim Monich had to teach his cast to speak in an Irish accent. Technically, Nicole Kidman’s accent is incorrect. As a well-to-do landowner’s daughter in Ireland at the time, she would have spoken with a largely English accent, but, as this probably would have confused international audiences, she was taught to speak in an educated Dublin accent.

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Trivia

  • Director Ron Howard wasn’t happy with Nicole Kidman’s facial reaction during the shooting of the scene where her character lifts the bowl covering Joseph’s (her husband Tom Cruise’s) crotch. Without telling Kidman, he asked Cruise to remove his underwear. Howard got the reaction he wanted, and it appears in the film.
  • The first and last feature since Ryan’s Daughter to use the Super 65mm format. After the movie was completed, all remaining six Panavision Super 65mm were retired and kept away.
  • The dress that Shannon admires in the shop window in Boston is the same dress worn by Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen) in the last scene of Back to the Future Part III.
  • Three of ‘Ron Howard’ ‘s great-grandparents actually rode in the Great Land Rush of 1893, as depicted in the film.
  • The recreation of the Great Land Rush involved 800 extras, 400 horses and 200 wagons. The extras were all recruited from a re-enactment society called The Re-enactors.
  • Although he had over 17 years of experience in the business in 1992, this film marked the first time that dialect coach Tim Monich had to teach his cast to speak in an Irish accent. Technically, Nicole Kidman’s accent is incorrect. As a well-to-do landowner’s daughter in Ireland at the time, she would have spoken with a largely English accent, but, as this probably would have confused international audiences, she was taught to speak in an educated Dublin accent.