Although it was a rare failure in Kazan’s highly distinguished career to this point, Wild River is now generally considered one of his very best films. It’s inspired by his exposure to sourthern poverty during the 1930s, and concerns a proud but poor family who resist moving from their island home despite the authorities’ decision to flood the river to create a new dam. Montgomery Clift is Chuck, the emissary sent to enforce their compliance. Jo van Fleet (43, playing an octogenarian) is the matriarch who stands her ground despite everything; Lee Remick, mercurial as her granddaughter, in dire straights but desperate to realize her last best chance.
It’s a lyrical, complex movie, rooted in place (it was shot on location in Tennessee) and sympathetic to all sides.
This 1960 drama is probably Elia Kazan’s finest and deepest film, a meditation on how the past both inhibits and enriches the present.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
In studying a slice of national socio-economic progress (the Tennessee Valley Authority of the early 1930s) in terms of people (those who enforced vs those who resisted), it catches something timeless and essential in the human spirit and shapes it in the American image.
Variety
Elia Kazan
Lee Remick, Montgomery Clift, Jo Van Fleet, Barbara Loden, Jay C Flippen
USA
1960
English
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Credits
Screenwriter
Paul Osborn
Cinematography
Ellsworth Fredericks
Editor
William Reynolds
Original Music
Kenyon Hopkins
Art Director
Herman A. Blumenthal, Lyle R. Wheeler
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