John Ford’s 1952 Oscar winner is a tribute to an Ireland that exists only in the imaginations of songwriters and poets like Ford, a fairy green place where people really do say “faith and begorrah.” John Wayne is an Irish-born American boxer who returns to his native village to (1) claim the family homestead, (2) win acceptance from the Abbey Players who populate the area, and (3) win the heart and hand—and dowry—of the local beauty, Maureen O’Hara, by winning over (and ultimately pummeling senseless) her hard-drinking brother, Victor McLaglen. A wonderful film, with a marvelous supporting cast headed by Barry Fitzgerald as Wayne’s pixieish helper.