Donovan's Reef
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Cesar Romero, Elizabeth Allen, Jack Warden, John Wayne, Lee Marvin Director: John Ford Brand: WAYNE,JOHN Cinematographer: William H. Clothier Producer: John Ford Editor: Otho Lovering Writer: Edmund Beloin Writer: Frank S. Nugent Writer: James Edward Grant Writer: James Michener DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen Picture Format: 1.85:1 Running Time: 109 minutes DVD Release Date: 2001-06-05 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Studio: Paramount |
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Movie Reviews of Donovan's Reef
Movie Review: How NOT to make a movie
Summary: 2 Stars
OK - most people love this movie. If I were teaching a class in filmmaking, I would spend a few weeks lecturing on how NOT to make a movie and would use this film as a prime example.
First, the scenery was beautiful. It was filmed on Kauai in 1963 and if you want to just enjoy the beauty - great. I lived in Hawaii and so I am familiar with the locations.
However, the story is supposed to take place on some South Pacific island - French speaking. Yet, the locals were 100% Hawaiian - their dress, language, everything.
I watched this film with a small group of friends, and it took us about half the film to figure out what was going on. It started off with Lee Marvin jumping off some ship floating a couple of miles offshore from Kauai. He slammed a board into the head of the guy who was keeping him captive on the ship, then swam to shore. Swam to shore? A couple of miles to Kauai? And, the guy who he hit didn't follow him to the island with a gun?
Once on the island he proceeds to get into a huge brawl with our hero, John Wayne. Of course, this involved several minutes of massive blows to the head, bottles of glass being broken, tables and chairs being smashed, and in the end, there was not one injury, nor drop of blood, nor bruise. It was all a lot of fun. A couple of other brawls took place in the film with the same result. Not one scratch. Please!!! A film has to have SOME "verisimilitude" or believability.
There is a scene in the film where there is a hurricane force storm pounding the island overnight. The next day there is not a drop of water to be seen anywhere, nor a leaf out of place. The scene shifts to town where the streets are dirt, and they are, of course, complete dry, as if not a drop of rain had fallen there in months.
In another scene there is water skiing on a river, and then they get off the boat and swim to shore in a bay - no river. This makes no sense at all.
The locals are portrayed as complete simpletons. The local church needs a new roof and every time it rains the locals have to sit in church with umbrellas. Gee, do you think someone there knows how to repair the roof? Or, are they so dumb that they just continue to sit in a wet church? Then, the local Chinese merchants are portrayed as crazed madmen. Perhaps this reflects John Ford's impression of the Chinese, but I found it horribly insulting.
Of course, Wayne and Marvin smoke and drink their way through the movie. Wayne also enjoys grabbing his female co-star caveman style, and she appears to enjoy this "roughing up". In the final scene they decide to marry, and to celebrate this he grabs her, and pulls her down to his lap and gives her a spanking. So, she should look forward to beatings during their marriage? What is the message here?
I generally like most movies, but I really thought this was one of the worst screenplays ever. The more I thought about the movie after it was over, the less I liked it.
If you don't mind a film shot in Hawaii but supposed to be in French Polynesia, showing scene after scene of drinking, smoking and brawling (with no injuries to the brawlers), a portrayal of the locals as mindless idiots, continuous continuity errors (rivers becoming bays, hurricanes leaving no aftereffects, etc.), Cook Island palm trees growing in a desert like environment at the Waimea Canyon lookout, and a confusing plot, you might like this film. Obviously millions of people love it, but it just struck me as distasteful.