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poster of Donovan's Reef
Rating: 6.2/10 by 136 users

Donovan's Reef (1963)

After her great aunt's death, a high-society woman arrives on a Hawaiian island in search of the heir - the father she has never met.

Directing:
  • John Ford
Writing:
  • James Edward Grant
  • Edmund Beloin
  • Frank S. Nugent
Stars:
Release Date: Wed, Jun 12, 1963

Rating: 6.2/10 by 136 users

Alternative Title:
Рифът на Донован - BG

Country:
United States of America
Language:
Français
English
Italiano
Runtime: 01 hour 49 minutes
Budget: $2,686,000
Revenue: $6,600,000

Plot Keyword: birthday, half-brother, priest, veteran, mission clinic, polynesia, bar brawl, christmas, piano, half sister, tiki culture

John Wayne
Michael "Guns" Donovan
Elizabeth Allen
Ameilia Dedham
Lee Marvin
Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley
Cesar Romero
Andre de Lage
Mike Mazurki
Monk Menkowicz
Jack Warden
William Dedham
Cherylene Lee
Sarah "Sally" Dedham
Jeffrey Byron
Luki Dedham
Dorothy Lamour
Miss Lafleur
Marcel Dalio
Father Cluzeot
Dick Foran
Sean O'Brien
Edgar Buchanan
Francis O'Brien
Jon Fong
Mister Eu
Dan Ford
Child (uncredited)
Mae Marsh
Family Council Member (uncredited)
Ron Nyman
Naval Officer (uncredited)
Aissa Wayne
Native Girl (uncredited)
Sara Taft
Family Council Member (uncredited)
John Alderson
Officer (uncredited)
Frank Hagney
Chief Petty Officer (uncredited)
Richard Kipling
Lawyer (uncredited)
John Qualen
Deckhand Who Cries 'Man Overboard' (uncredited)
Charles Seel
Grand Uncle Sedley Atterbury Pennyfeather (uncredited)
Patrick Wayne
Australian Navy Lieutenant (uncredited)

John Chard

Sunny, breezy and flipping delightful. You hear the names John Ford and John Wayne and one automatically thinks of Westerns, sprawling landscapes and machismo in bunches. Odd then that their last collaboration should be a knock about comedy set on a paradise isle. Perhaps even odder is that it should turn out to be one of their most entertaining films. Donovan's Reef finds the two Johns in very relaxed mood, as is the rest of the cast I might add. A cast that includes Lee Marvin, Mike Mazurki, Jack Warden, Cesar Romero, Dorothy Lamour and the lovely Elizabeth Allen. Speaking personally, I found the film far more rewarding by not knowing much about it before hand, I really only ventured into it out of loyalty to the Johns and the Marv. So in that, this isn't much of a review as such, because I would simply urge people to give it a go. Why you ask?, well because it's one of those films that can brighten your day when things have gone dark, you got The Duke and The Marv slugging each other at regular intervals, not in the normal way associated with these guys, but jocular-with this biff bang machismo comes laughs a plenty. We have Romero and his beard on prime slime mode, Allen as delicious as she is prim and proper and the Kaua'i location work gorgeously realised by William H. Clothier's photography. It's not just a comedy either. Under the mirth we find Ford dealing in thematics such as anti-racism, anti preconceptions and one of his pet leanings of brotherhood. Donovan's Reef is a smashing film, it's far from perfect, something the principals were aware of. But in the end it's obvious that all involved just said to hell with it, lets enjoy it and hope the audience buys into that attitude as well. One can only hope that you do buy into it, and thus get as much fun from it as yours truly most assuredly did. 8/10


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