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This may not be one of John Ford's masterpieces but I have always loved it. It meets my personal definition of a great movie which is one which you will always watch if it comes on TV, even if you watched it yesterday. John Wayne is a little old for a romantic leading man role but he and Elizabeth Allen were very good together anyway. Beautiful Kawaii scenery, good music as in all Ford films. I always especially liked Jacqueline Malouf as Lalani Dedham and always wondered why her career was so short. Thanks to AI you can find out so much more so much easier now She married her husband in 1963 the year he graduated from the Air Force Academy and I guess it was just going to be too difficult to pursue a movie career married to an Air force officer. Too bad. I received my copy of the new Blu-Ray release of Donovan's Reef which came out today and the picture is gorgeous. Now you can see this film the way it should be seen.

I'm glad that some of my favorite review sites gave this good if not great reviews, because I love it. There are very few movies that I don't like on some level from great art to pure entertainment or even camp, but there are so few that everyone loves or hates that it makes one wonder about film critics and criticism in general. I prefer a review that agrees with my general like or dislike of a film and which teaches me something about why I feel the way I do. But in the end it's like Woody Allen says, the heart wants what it wants. You can love a movie without reasons or even against your better reason. This film has charming leads, beautiful settings, great music, a slight twist on Allen's cynical view of life. It may not be among his greats but it is one of those films that if I come in on in the middle I always finish again and feel happy to have seen it one more time. If that doesn't make it a good movie, I don't know what would.

Movies are strange things. Some are high art and some are just guilty entertainment. Except at extremes of greatness and trash people and especially reviewers will seldom agree on how good (well made ,entertaining, socially significant, whatever) a movie is. I happen to love this movie for many of the same reasons stated in the positive reviews above. In reading through many of the external reviews I am amazed how many of the reviewers, especially important reviewers from major newspapers, just don't get it . Then read Roger Ebert's review. I didn't always agree with his reviews (sometimes it seemed like we hadn't even seen the same movie) but the vast majority of the time he got it right, and this was one of those times.