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Surprisingly incoherent and boring

i must have seen a different film!!

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

. . . you'll "spoil the child," but DONOVAN'S REEF provides just one more example of John Wayne's take on Family Management, which might be summed up as, "Spare the hand, spoil the wife!" DONOVAN'S REEF concludes with Mr. Wayne's "Mike" character closing his engagement deal with Elizabeth Allen's "Amelia" by turning her over his knee and giving her a few mighty whacks on her rump. A few years later John would reprise this mode of domestic man-handling in his penultimate collaboration with frequent co-star Maureen O'Hara, McLINTOCK! (Perhaps he spanked Mo in all the pictures they made together; my memory is NOT photographic!) Of course, in McLINTOCK!, Mr. Wayne made Whaling on the Wife a multi-generational family affair, as he had one of his Real Life sons redden the rear of the latter's movie mate. When these flicks featuring Battles of the Buttocks were originally released, Wayne's focus on the female derrière probably was considered to be, "Good, Clean Fun." When you ponder over this today, remember that if John had just spent MORE time recreating with ladies' butts and LESS time creating cigarette butts, he might have been able to make more movies!

Having just been to Hawai'i, I decided to watch movies filmed in Hawai'i. Even better (I thought) were that the films attempt to address racism and mixed race children. By was I wrong. In both cases I got a severely dated film that seems racist in it's attempt to counter racism. Last week was South Pacific= Woman learns to love "half breed" children & ends up with old guy. Donovan's Reef=YOUNG woman comes to meet her father, learns to care for her "half caste" siblings. And falls (for NO discernible reason) for her father's OLD friend. Lots of ethnic stereotypes. Lots of TOTALLY RANDOM fight scenes. Some discussions of god, random Christmas mass thrown in. Lovely views of Kauai, the Waimea canyon save about 10 minutes of it, but over all not worth watching.

This colorful story of Wayne and Marvin getting together for their annual fist fight on their shared birthday might have been preposterous and funny -- something along the lines of "What Price Glory?" It had the right ingredients in its cast and crew.But by this time, maybe, Ford was pushing seventy and age usually doesn't help the configuration of a good comedy. Wayne looks a bit old for the part of "Guns" Donovan, ex-Navy man who runs a saloon on an island in French Polynesia and falls for the much younger Elizabeth Allen, who isn't a bad actress and is nicely put together.Marvin is about right in his appearance and he hams it up vigorously as if actually enjoying the role of the shallow and sneaky ex-boatswain's mate. The rest of the cast makes the most of what they have.The exuberant fist fight involving the Royal Australian Navy is, if not the equal of some of Ford's other comic brawls, at least a wonder in its own right.But Ford's judgment lapsed now and again. Jack Warden has proved that he can do comic support in films like "Heaven Can Wait" and "Being There," but in this film he seems to be wondering why he's here. The quasi-romance between Marvin and Ford's old native seductress from "The Hurricane," Dorothy Lamour, is shallow, but nobody cares much anyway. Certainly not Marvin, distracted by his toy train set, squinting at the locomotive from rail level, as every kid has done at Christmas.Maybe the problem is that there's simply too much sentiment and not enough comedy. Those three kids are pretty tiresome, especially the two younger ones. Jacqueline Malouf I give a pass to. She's supposed to be only a teen ager but, well, I give her a pass for looking so thoroughly nubile.Ford's own yacht, The Araner, has a couple of featured moments. The director was to sell it shortly because it was so old that just keeping it up was a financial burden. Ford hated giving it up, as he hated relinquishing anything from the past. But like the movie, like Ford himself, it was simply past time for its retirement.

Wonderful fun this movie but the miscasting is incredible!Wayne looks more like a grand-dad than an uncle to the kids.Lee Marvin steals the film with his superb cameo.Miss Allen is awfully mismatched with Wayne.In fact even Warden who played her father was many years Wayne's junior.Had he made this film 10 years earlier it might have been more plausible with the usual Maureen O'Hara.The story line is apt as well as the script.As usual Mr.Ford uses nature to good effect.A good roll-licking film for the die-hard Ford fans but no more than an escapist farewell to once an heroic star.John Ford probably was not aware of the tremendous changes there were going on.A younger,fresher actor to pair with Marvin would have done more justice.But in his lifetime there was only one man this director had in mind.John Wayne!