Hoping to inherent a substantial fortune by proving that her estranged father is a man of ill repute, a Boston woman travels to the tropical island where her father has long resided in this late career John Ford comedy. Elizabeth Allen is well cast as the prudish woman in question who gradually softens during the course of the film, but top billing here goes to John Wayne and Lee Marvin, cast as her father's friends. Wayne in fact has the most screen time as he takes to covering up the fact that Allen's father married a local woman - and had three non-Caucasian children - by pretending that the kids are his own. The comedic potential of this angle is never quite maximised though as Ford instead tries to derive humour from friendly fistfights and physical comedy (a man crashing through a concert piano). Wayne's formulaic romancing of Allen is not especially funny either, but then again comedy was never Ford's strongest suit. The film is more worthwhile than it may sound though. The snapshot of island life is fairly alluring with many races living there in peace and harmony. The locations are quite spectacular too and one gets a sense that the characters living there are quite rich in other ways, even if they do not have a fortune to inherit. The film has a very good supporting cast too, though most do not have a lot to do. Caesar Romero is perfectly smarmy, Jack Warden is solid as Allen's father and Jacqueline Malouf is great as Warden's eldest daughter who has to contend with the emotional toll of meeting her half-sister for the first time and pretending to be someone else.
Review of Donovan's Reef
