For those with an IQ above room temperature and for whom reality is important I'll only comment that this John Wayne movie is one of his best. It contains the innocent fun of the US in 1963 and is a straightforward film with a straightforward story and, contrary to those with some sort of liberal axe to grind this film is exactly what it was intended to be, i.e., 91 minutes of fun with a decent look at one of my favorite places on earth Kalapaki Beach, Lihue, Kauai and the Duke in his prime.

DONOVAN'S REEF is an unusual social commentary comedy set on one of those idyllic South Seas islands that you only ever find in old movies. At least there are no cannibals in this one. The story sees a bunch of ex-pat Americans wreaking havoc in the era as they try to keep secrets from one another and court beautiful women.I watched this as part of a John Wayne kick and I have to rank it as one of his lesser efforts. Wayne is his typical self but the film doesn't really do much with his character. Lee Marvin has some funny drunken scenes and Cesar Romero is always a welcome presence in film but the movie as a whole is a bit of a slog, made when director John Ford was on his last legs. It didn't give me much reason to laugh.

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

Having not seen "The Wings Of Eagles", I cannot say that "Donovan's Reef", the last collaboration between director John Ford and star John Wayne, was also their least. But "Eagles" would have to be remarkably bad to beat this."Guns" Donovan (Wayne) lives on a faraway island in French Polynesia which he helped liberate from Japanese occupation in World War II along with buddies "Boats" Gilhooley (Lee Marvin) and "Doc" Dedham (Jack Warden). Trouble comes in the form of Dedham's long-estranged daughter Ameilia (Elizabeth Allen), who travels from Boston to prove her father is not of fit moral character to own a piece of his family's fortune. Donovan hides Dedham's three native offspring by pretending they are his, to buy time while winning Ameilia over to the ways of the island and her father.There, I just spent more time on the plot of "Donovan's Reef" than the movie itself does! "Donovan's Reef" is a rambling mess, perhaps an attempt to grab all the comic relief bits from Ford's more serious films and build an entire movie around them. Either that or an excuse for Ford to throw himself a party in the Pacific. Beyond the arrival of Ameilia, nothing happens during the film's two-hour running time. Gilhooley and Donovan smash up the latter's bar, Donovan's Reef, while Gilhooley is chased by aging barfly Miss Lafleur (Dorothy Lamour). Christmas is celebrated in a rainy church. The French governor of the island (Cesare Romero) makes eyes for Ameilia.William H. Clothier fills the screen with some remarkable Hawaiian landscapes, and Allen gives her part, "Miss Bunker Hill" as Donovan calls her, more than it deserves. She also gives Wayne someone to play off of that rouses his better moments in this film, something that can't be said of any other member of the cast, including Marvin, who after a big build-up retreats to the background and acts drunk. Maybe he WAS drunk; it's that kind of film.Warden plays his part way too straight and Marcel Dalio as a French priest plays his way too broad. One of these guys is in the wrong picture; I think it's Warden. Ford plays everything too broad, with annoyingly repetitive musical cues and endless ceremonies. The island seems a haven for Ford's cinematic tics and idiosyncrasies. People don't walk anywhere, they file in tight parade, two by two. They also burst into sudden song, the same dreary number complete with arms waving in unison and invisible instrumental accompaniment. When Ameilia swims onto an empty beach in a revealing bathing suit, an unidentified character runs into the frame, throws her a towel, and runs out.What really annoys me is the script by James Edward Grant. We are asked to side against Ameilia because she took badly to her father's abandonment and because she is stuck up. Yet as soon as she's on the island, she's being abused by Donovan, doused in the ocean and then dragged across a beach. Grant liked his women being spanked and thrown out of windows, but here he really shoves your face in that, along with icky cute scenes featuring the Dedham offspring.If not for Allen and Clothier, "Donovan's Reef" would be much worse than it is. As it is, it's pretty bad, showing even the best of movie partnerships needed the right help to make something for the ages.