Wild River is a 1960 film directed by Elia Kazan starring Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet, Albert Salmi and Jay C. Flippen. It tells the story of a young Tennessee Valley Authority administrator who comes to a small town in Tennessee to enforce the clearing of the land to be flooded by a new dam in the Tennessee river. An ageing matriarch (Jo Van Fleet) refuses to sell her land to the federal government and the film anticipates much of the environmental debates concerning the artificial control of rivers. The federal agent (Montgomery Clift) falls in love with the matrarch's granddaughter (Lee Remick) and some scenes between them are remarkable for their erotic tension with no explicits whatsoever. The film also portrays some of the racial issues in the south of the USA after the depression. Filmed in Cinemascope, this work by Elia Kazan shows a deep understanding of the relationship of Nature and the Land with the individual in the United States, reminiscent of artistic and philosophical concerns coming from the 19th century. Some of the panoramic scenes, with the river meandering by beautiful green hills, but with tree stumps on the foreground, are reminiscent of some landscape painting techniques of the Hudson River School. The acting is riveting -- one of the renowned imprints of Elia Kazan as a movie director.
The movie was adapted by Paul Osborn from two novels -- Borden Deal's Dunbar's Cove and William Bradford Huie's 1942 novel, Mud on the Stars. It was filmed in Charleston, Tennessee near Chattanooga on the Hiwassee and Tennessee Rivers.
A young field administrator (Montgomery Clift) for the TVA comes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of an elderly woman from her home on an island in the River, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter. Written by Sam Neff
