Review of Donovan's Reef (1963) by Enrique M — 06 Mar 2008

Donovan's Reef was the final collaboration between Johns Wayne and Ford, and features manly men doing manly things such as swill booze, chomp on cee-gars and hit each other with furniture. It can best be seen as a kind of attempt to make a masculine romantic comedy.

However to me it just seemed like a western set in the south seas with all but the bar room brawls, sentiment and romance removed. In other words, with all the good bits removed. It's not dreadful as such, but it's gender politics are very dated (as if a young Boston sophisticate would be attracted to an middle-aged, brawling, beer sodden school boy) and it's just not that funny.

Not a fitting epilogue to a partnership that produced some of the cinematic greats. Or maybe I'm just not "manly" enough...