Donovans Reef (1963)
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.
Australian Navy officer: I beg your pardon sir. Did I understand you to say, "Limeys?"
Diminutive Australian Navy Officer: I heard him.
Australian Navy Officer: Me too.
Michael Patrick 'Guns' Donovan: [Enters] Gilhooley! Where the Hell is my suit?
Diminut
Kaua`i, Hawaii, USA
Waimea Canyon, Kaua'i, Hawaii, USA
This is the technically last movie that John Ford and John Wayne worked on together, although Wayne later provided the voice-over narration for Ford's documentary Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend (1976).
Actor John Qualen dubbed the voice of the sailor who yells "Man overboard!" in the opening scene, though it is not Qualen on-screen.
During the scene where Amelia is wishing to "charter the Araner", Donovan states that he owns the Araner and a boat named the Inisfree. Inisfree is the name of the village in Ireland in which The Quiet Man (1952), another John Wayne / John Ford film, takes place.
Actor Mickey Simpson is sometimes mistakenly credited as the mate hit with a mop by Lee Marvin in the opening scene. It is not Simpson but Duke Green.
In a fight with Lee Marvin, John Wayne underestimated an uppercut. He crashed through a table and fell down. Director John Ford decided to leave the scene in the movie.
Ameilia asks the captain "to charter the Araner." That was the real name of John Ford's yacht, which is the yacht used in the movie.
In the beginning, Gilhooley tells the captain who "shanghai'd" him that they were supposed to be at the island "on the 7th". Taking into account the time-line of the movie, ending on Christmas, that would make Donovan and Gilhooley's birthday as December 7th, the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Continuity
When Amelia first starts skiing, she loses her bathing cap. After falling in the water, the cap is back on her head.
Amelia presents Gilhooley with a Christmas present then goes out back of the bar to confront Donovan. When she returns, not more than a couple of minutes later, Gilhooley already has the train set put together on the bar and is playing with it.
Amelia loses her stockings after falling in the water.
When Ameila first comes ashore, she and Donovan are sitting in a jeep on the dock. Gilhooley is standing by the hood on the driver?s side of the jeep talking across the hood to Amelia on the passenger side. In the shots of Amelia and Donovan, Donovan's fore arms are resting on the steering wheel. In the reverse shots of Gilhooley, Donovan's arms are not visible on the wheel.
When Donovan takes the kids and Amelia up the mountain to cut down an "island Christmas tree" they cut down a very pretty and bright green tree and put it in the back of the jeep. When they arrive back in town and pull up in front of Donovan's bar, the tree looks dead and shriveled.
Factual errors
French Polynesia was 4,000 km (about 2200 nautical miles) east of the farthest Japanese expansion, and there was no fighting there.
At 32:24, Cesar Romero asks what Miss Dedham's worth is, "according to Dun and Bradstreet." D&B wouldn't be able to apprise anyone of her personal fortune is, as they concern themselves only with commercial credit, not personal. They might be able to tell him the net worth of her shipping company, if its stock is publicly traded or if the company chooses to release its financial information. But her own, private business is not D&B's concern.
Revealing mistakes
When the piano is destroyed in the bar brawl, there's no sign of its metal frame and strings in the debris.
Miscellaneous
In Boston they are talking about the will and how it is written to say that under Boston standards and morals, if found to be immoral, that Dr. Dedham could be cheated out of the stock. However, that terminology is contestable in court because it is far too vague of a reference.
The Christmas tree in the jeep when they returned to town was not the tropical tree they cut down.
Crew or equipment visible
On the road when the children are forced to leave their home to move in with Donovan, the shadow of the camera is visible on the people as they walk by.
Errors in geography
Although set in French Polynesia, the music over the opening credits (and subsequently) is Hawaiian, with its distinctive steel (slide) guitar.
Plot holes
Ameilia reads aloud the full names of Donovan, Gilhooley, and Doc Dedham off the plaque on the war monument. Later, a screen shot of the plaque shows only the person's first initial and last name.