Themes: Faltering Friendships, Fathers and Daughters, Mistaken Identities
Main Cast: John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Jack Warden, Elizabeth Allen, Dick Foran, Cesar Romero
Release Year: 1963
Country: US
Run Time: 109 minutes
Plot
John Ford's last film to deal with World War II, Donovan's Reef is an alternately comical and sentimental look back on the fighting Navy men from that war, and how and where -- in Ford's eyes, and Frank Nugent and James Edward Grant's script -- they should have ended up. Michael "Guns" Donovan (John Wayne), Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley (Lee Marvin), and Dr. William Dedham (Jack Warden), a trio of navy veterans who fought on the Pacific island of Haleakalowa during the war, now live on the island. Donovan and Gilhooley, biding time and enjoying themselves, engage in rough-house hijinks among themselves, and are both part of the doctor's extended family, enjoying the good will of the islanders for whom they fought during the war. While Dedham is away on a call to a neighboring island, his grown daughter, Amelia (Elizabeth Allen), from his first marriage, whom he has never seen, announces that she is arriving from Boston to determine Dedham's fitness of character to inherit the majority shares in the family shipping business. Donovan contrives to present Dedham's three Polynesian children, whom the doctor had with the island's hereditary princess, as his own, and also squires Amelia around the island in her father's absence. In the process, the cold Bostonian woman discovers a whole world -- of passion, joy, heroism, and a life among men and women whose lives have been about something other than making money -- that she's never known. She also understands all of the good that her father has accomplished away from Boston, even though it entailed abandoning her. Sparks and even a few fists fly between Donovan and Amelia (and between Donovan and several other characters), in the usual Ford rough-house manner, before their eventual reconciliation and a romantic clinch at the end, in this sweet, sentimental comedy-drama. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
Donovan's Reef is one of John Ford's most misunderstood and underrated movies. On its original release, critics dismissed it as a leisurely comedy done with no obvious purpose other than to give the Ford stock company something not too difficult to do in Hawaii. It is not among Ford's very best movies, to be sure, and its apparent shortcomings, including John Wayne being awkwardly cast opposite a leading lady 23 years his junior, are more obvious than its virtues, but those virtues do stand out over time. Forty years after it was made, it is far easier to perceive where Donovan's Reef fits in, properly and even proudly, with Ford's broader output, and Wayne's as well. One must think of Donovan's Reef as being of a piece with They Were Expendable and Ford's other navy films, almost in the way that Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande relate to each other as cavalry movies with somewhat similar (and similarly named) characters, often played by the same actors in each; but Donovan's Reef is also different in the way it relates to They Were Expendable, from the way that She Wore a Yellow Ribbon relates to Rio Grande, in that Donovan's Reef takes place a generation after the events in They Were Expendable. Ford -- who was a navy man through and through (and held the rank of rear admiral in the reserves) -- and screenwriters Frank Nugent and James Edward Grant were telling a story of the kind of men whose lives Ford had captured in They Were Expendable, and where they were (or where they would have liked for them to have been) 20 years later. The movie is filled with autumnal images referring back to World War II, and to the people who fought it, but it also has a fiercely topical edge, a subplot involving racism, that is almost overlooked today. The movie was made in Hawaii, and most have forgotten that the struggle to get Hawaii admitted as a state of the United States took many years, because the racial composition of the islands' population made Hawaii unsuitable -- in the eyes of many of members of Congress in the 1950s -- as a state of the United States. Ford was cognizant of issues of racism and prejudice throughout this career as a filmmaker, although as an old-fashioned conservative, his ways of addressing them sometimes seem arcane or obscure to modern liberals; but in the final 15 years of his career, in movies ranging from Fort Apache through The Sun Shines Bright to The Horse Soldiers and (most obviously) Sergeant Rutledge, through Donovan's Reef to Cheyenne Autumn, he took on these subjects in ways that the most passionate liberals could applaud. The movie has its weaknesses, mostly as a result of the advancing age of all concerned -- a lot of the "stock company" that would have been in it in prior years, including Ward Bond and Victor McLaglen, were gone -- and the director himself was in ill health (some accounts say that Wayne took it upon himself to check the rushes every day to make sure that everything had been done right). John Wayne was also getting on in years, still, he did well in one of the most effective comic performances of his career, and one of his last truly sentimental portrayals, and slipped effortlessly into a more serious mode when it was called for in the action; and Lee Marvin, Jack Warden, and Elizabeth Allen added a lot of energy to the movie. Over the years, Donovan's Reef has aged very well, exuding passion, sentimentality, patriotism, and the frustrations and the joys of advancing age, everything Ford ever wanted in the movie to begin with. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Dorothy Lamour - Miss Lafleur; Jacqueline Malouf - Lelani Dedham; Mike Mazurki - Sgt. Menkowicz; Marcel Dalio - Father Cluzeot; Jon Fong - Mr. Eu; Tim Stafford - Luki Dedham; Carmen Estrabeau - Sister Gabrielle; Frank Baker - Capt. Martin; Edgar Buchanan - Boston notary; Harold Fong; Duke Green - Mate; Sam Harris - Family council member; Cheryline Lee - Sally Dedham; Carl Leviness; Cliff Lyons - Officer; Mae Marsh - Family council member; Midori - Servant; Yvonne Peattie - Sister Matthew; Chuck Roberson - Festus; Charles Seel - Grand uncle Sedley Atterbury; Sara Taft - Family council member; Ralph Volkie - James; Patrick Wayne - Navy Lieutenant; June Kim; King Lockwood - Lawyer; Ron Nyman - Naval Officer; Scott Seaton; Aissa Wayne - Native girl; Fred Jones - Family council member; John Stafford - Child
The film is a morality play in the guise of an action/comedy. It deals harshly (though not in an obvious way) with issues of racial bigotry, corporate connivance and greed, American beliefs of societal "superiority" and hypocrisy (i.e., the Boston shipping company considers carrying rum to be immoral, so they euphemistically refer to it as "West Indies goods").
The film begins with Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley (Marvin), an expatriateUnited States Navy veteran, working aboard a freighter. When he realizes that the ship he signed up for is just passing by Haleakaloha, French Polynesia, and not actually stopping there, he jumps ship to swim to the island.
Next, Michael "Guns" Donovan (Wayne), another expatriate U.S. Navy veteran and a former shipmate of Gilhooley, returns from a fishing trip aboard an outrigger canoe. Donovan is greeted by William "Doc" Dedham (Warden), the only physician in the archipelago, who is about to begin a one- or two-week pre-Christmas circuit of the "outer islands," taking care of the health needs of the residents. Dedham's three children are placed in Donovan's care.
The kids' plans for a peaceful celebration of Donovan's birthday, on December 7, are shattered by the arrival of Gilhooley, who shares the same birthday. There is an unbroken 21-year tradition that Donovan and Gilhooley have a knock-down, drag-out fight every birthday—to the delight of the local observers—and their 22nd year does not break the tradition. The two vets meet in (and trash) "Donovan's Reef," the saloon owned by Donovan.
Miss Amelia Dedham (Allen) is a "proper" young lady "of means" from Boston, who has become the chairman of the board of the Dedham Shipping Company. Her father is Doc Dedham, whom she has never met, but who now has inherited a large block of stock in the family company, making him the majority stockholder. She travels to Haleakaloha in hope of finding proof that Doc has violated an outdated (but still in effect) morality clause in the will which would enable her to keep him from inheriting the stock and retain control.
When word reaches Haleakaloha that Miss Dedham is on the way, a scheme is concocted by Donovan, Gilhooley, and the Marquis de Lage (Romero). De Lage is Haleakaloha's French governor, who hopes to find a post somewhere else. Donovan is to pretend to be the father of Doc's three hapa children (Leilani, Sarah and Luke), until Doc comes back and can explain things to the prim, proper Boston lady. The plan is reluctantly accepted by the oldest daughter, Leilani, who believes that the deception is because she and her siblings aren't white, a reflection of the bigotry of the period.
The plan works, and Amelia learns that her father, Donovan and Gilhooley were marooned on the Japanese-occupied island after their destroyer was sunk in World War II. With the help of the locals, the three men conducted a guerrilla war against the Japanese. She also learns that her father built a hospital, and lives in a large house (she had obviously expected to find a shack). A mystery develops, as she enters the house and sees a portrait of a beautiful Polynesian woman in royal trappings. This, the viewer understands, was Doc's wife, the mother of his children. Amelia is not told of the relationship, but she learns that the woman was named Manulani. Donovan mentions that Luke's mother (by implication, his own wife) had died in childbirth.
As the story develops, Amelia learns that life in the islands is not as she expected, and neither is Donovan, who proves to be educated and intelligent, and the owner of a substantial local shipping operation. Amelia, too, is not as expected, as when she strips off her outdated "swimming costume" to reveal a tight swimsuit, challenges Donovan to a swimming race, and dives into the water. They develop a truce, as de Lage tries to court Amelia (or rather, her $18,000,000).
When Dr. Dedham returns, father and daughter meet for the first time (Amelia: "Doctor Dedham, I presume?"). He has been told about the deception, and over dinner he explains that he was serving in World War II when his wife (Amelia's mother) died. When the war ended, he felt that he was not needed in Boston, but was desperately needed in the islands, so he stayed. He has even signed over his stock to Amelia, as he intends to remain in the islands. Just as he is about to explain about Manulani and their children (described by Amelia as "half-caste"), a hospital emergency interrupts.
It turns out that Manulani was the granddaughter of the last hereditary prince of the islands, and on Christmas Amelia finally puts all of the pieces together to solve the mystery. Leilani—Manulani's daughter—is not only the island's princess, but Amelia's sister, a relationship which is tearfully but joyfully acknowledged by both girls.
Amelia and Donovan evolve their truce into marriage plans. Gilhooley also finally marries his longtime girlfriend, Miss Lafleur (Dorothy Lamour). Donovan points out the new sign on the saloon, which is now "Gilhooley's Reef". Donovan has given the bar to his old shipmate as a wedding present.
Crisis resolved, life in the islands can return to normal.
While Donovan's Reef is set on the fictional island of Haleakaloha, which has a French governor, the only Polynesian language exhibited in the film is Hawaiian -- "Haleakaloha" can be translated as "Home of Laughter and Love" (hale = home, aka = laugh, aloha = love) -- and Amelia has come from Honolulu by sailing ship, indicating a location much closer to Hawaii than to French Polynesia.
The movie was actually filmed on Kauai, Hawaii. The home of the French island governor, the white beach house with coconut palms and surrounding grass lawn, is the Allerton Estate home and former summer residence of Hawaiian Queen Emma near Poipu Beach, now a part of the National Tropical Botantical Garden (without the scenes of boats and canoes on the Wailua River, which were edited and merged with scenes filmed at the Allerton Estate).
There is one major historical error: French Polynesia was 4,000 km east of the farthest Japanese expansion, and there was no fighting there.
In a bit of tongue-in-cheek, portraits of the founder and leaders of the Dedham Shipping Company are all of Warden (in appropriate period dress). The portrait of Manulani appears to be a similar treatment of Allen, as she would appear if she were Polynesian or hapa.
A mistaken use of a blasphemy slipped past the censors. At the end of the first fight between John Wayne and Lee Marvin, after Jack Warden has broken it up, Wayne and Marvin start to get out of the pond, but Marvin slipped and fell back into the water. As he did so, he exclaimed, "Jesus!" Because it was funny, the error was left in the film, and because the sound of the water partially obscured the exclamation, the dialogue was also left unaltered.
