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Donovan's Reef

Donovan's Reef

Adventure · Comedy · Romance · 1963

After her great aunt's death, a high-society woman arrives on a Hawaiian island in search of the heir - the father she has never met.

Movie details

Donovan's Reef

“Gangway...For This Year's BIG Adventure!”

1963 Adventure · Comedy · Romance 1h 49m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.7 / 10

10K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

67 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

64 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.2 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

After her great aunt's death, a high-society woman arrives on a Hawaiian island in search of the heir - the father she has never met.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Donovan's Reef?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

John Ford

Written by

Edmund Beloin · Frank S. Nugent · James Edward Grant

John Wayne

John Wayne

Michael "Guns" Donovan

Elizabeth Allen

Elizabeth Allen

Ameilia Dedham

Lee Marvin

Lee Marvin

Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley

Cesar Romero

Cesar Romero

Andre de Lage

Mike Mazurki

Mike Mazurki

Monk Menkowicz

Jack Warden

Jack Warden

William Dedham

J

Jacqueline Malouf

Lelani Dedham

Court is in session

Put Donovan's Reef on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Popcorn Loyalist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.