Donovan's Reef is a 1963 American adventure comedy film starring John Wayne and Lee Marvin.

The supporting cast features Elizabeth Allen, Jack Warden, Cesar Romero, Dick Foran, and Dorothy Lamour.

Nearly two decades after World War II, Thomas Gilhooley, an expatriate United States Navy (USN) veteran, works on a freighter.

Amelia travels to Haleakaloha to find proof that Doc has violated an outdated (but still in effect) morality clause in the will, preventing him from inheriting the stock and enabling her to retain control.

Fearing that Miss Dedham’s Boston sensibilities will be shocked by her father’s half-polynesian (Hapa) children, Donovan, Gilhooley and the Marquis de Lage concoct a scheme.

Amelia learns that during the war her father, Donovan, and Gilhooley were marooned on the Japanese-occupied island after their destroyer was sunk.

Besides a hospital, her father built a large house, where a portrait of a beautiful Polynesian woman in royal attire is displayed prominently.

Amelia takes warmly to “Donovan’s” children, unwittingly inviting them to a cozy Christmas at their own home.

"[4] While Donovan's Reef is set on the fictional island of Haleakaloha, which has a French governor, the only Polynesian language exhibited in the film is Hawaiian; "Haleakaloha" can be translated as "Home of Laughter and Love" (hale = home, aka = laugh, aloha = love).

The home of the French island governor, the white beach house with coconut palms and surrounding grass lawn, is the Allerton Estate home and former summer residence of Hawaiian Queen Emma near Poipu Beach, now a part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (without the scenes of boats and canoes on the Wailua River, which were edited and merged with scenes filmed at the Allerton Estate).

Produced on a budget of $2,686,000,[1] the film grossed $6,600,000 in North America,[1] earning $3.3 million in US theatrical rentals.

A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote that the movie was "sheer contrivance effected in hearty, fun-loving, truly infectious style".