smits59 Try to see this movie before you spent any money on it, as I did.Sure, there is a lot of beautiful scenery. And some of the acting is great; Jo van Fleet is brilliant! But Elia Kazan's directing is too heavy handed for Clift and Remmick. Clift does his line and then performs the face he is told to show. But there is no connection between the line and the face. Remmick does the same, but since it her début I can't hold that against her. This effect makes this movie difficult to watch.The story is full off holes too: the relation between Clift and Remmick starts totally unbelievable. Wouldn't a mother think of her kids? Her house is her future but check out the map in the beginning of the movie and form your own opinion. (since I'm trying to avoid spoilers I can't go into details)

grumpy736-1 I agree with most of the praises that precede this post -- I'm glad I tuned into it on TCM and on my recently added wide screen TV -- it is the made for wide screen version and it is magnificent. The reason I stepped in here was: there was a sharecropper (?)who resembled James Earl Jones so I looked into the credits. Someone was ahead of me and said that it was James Earl Jones' father, who also had a deep resonant voice.Jo Van Fleet deserved a Best Supporting Actress definitely. Albert Salmi had a role he could play easily -- with menace that worries an audience. A nine because I didn't buy into the romance with Lee Remick and those scenes were too long for me.

nomoons11 I didn't have any idea what I was gonna see with Wild River but for me it was a mixed bag.First off I really did like this film. I'm a huge Elia Kazan fan along with Lee Remick. One of my favorites ever is "A Face in the Crowd " so I was eager to see a little gem I didn't know existed in the Kazan canon.The film itself is extremely well made and acted. Great subject matter and very different for the time it was made. Monty Clift looks a lot better in this then films he did after this. He's crystal clear and coherent with no signs of sickness or illness. He stands out for sure. All the actors make a stand in this film so to me it's an ensemble piece. Not a Clift piece. Lee Remick is just gorgeous in this.I guess my only complaint would be the racism part. I've grown up in the south my whole life and have known people who are like one of the protagonists in this, very racist and cruel, but I think a lot of films in this time that protracted the south just made everyone seem like they were stupid or backwards and hated everyone black or whatever background they were. There's some mild cases of that in this film also. I'm glad the days of film-making with that tone are over cause not everyone was like that. Seems Hollywood for a long time liked to take that agenda and squeeze it for all it was worth.It amazed me they took as long as they did to throw this old woman off of her property because it was plainly obvious that the river needed to be redone to fix a lot of issues and appeasing this old biddy didn't make sense to me. She and her "island" bunch wouldn't have held up progress for thousands of people on a principle in this day and age. Of course in the end it all works out but it's still offbeat to me to see that people were like that back in the day. Screw progress and screw everyone else...what's mine is mine. That's selfish and not acceptable in any day and time.This a nice little Kazan gem. If it passes your eye, stop and grab it. It's worth a watch.

bkoganbing According to Robert LaGuardia's biography of Montgomery Clift, director Elia Kazan got the germ of the idea for Wild River while working temporarily for the Department of Agriculture during the New Deal years. He saw how the creation of these government agencies changed American life and waited for about 20 years before finally getting to do his New Deal film.The agency he chose was one that has lasted and changed the lives of people in about seven states that the Tennessee River and tributaries flow through. The Tennessee Valley Authority was one of the great achievements of the Roosevelt administration bringing cheap hydroelectric power to a region that private companies would not service because it wasn't profitable. The dams on the tributary rivers and on the Tennessee itself became part of a whole system that changed everyone's lives in the region for the better.Well, almost everyone and that's what the story of Wild River is all about. A family named Garth headed by matriarch Jo Van Fleet lives and farms on an island in the river which will be flooded over when the dams are finished. TVA administrator Monty Clift is sent to deal with the situation, but also gets personally involved with Van Fleet's grand daughter Lee Remick.The film really belongs to Van Fleet. You'll not forget her portrayal of an aged and stern pioneer farm woman who is just fighting for the place that's been home all her life. In my opinion Kazan got just as good a performance out of Jo Van Fleet maybe even better than the one she got an Oscar for in East Of Eden. In fact the whole film is sadly overlooked when judging Elia Kazan's work. I think it's a masterpiece.As for Clift, Kazan originally wanted Marlon Brando, but when Brando proved unavailable he hired Clift who was becoming more available simply because of his unreliability due to his increased drinking. While he didn't stay clean and sober for the shoot, he respected Kazan and the film enough to be letter perfect on his days before the camera. Monty was on a sad downward spiral in his life though you would not know it from this film, the one preceding it Suddenly Last Summer and the one following it, Judgment At Nuremberg for which he got an Oscar nomination. He was one of the greatest screen actors there ever was, most of his work is classic. Ironically Marlon Brando would be hired when Clift died in 1966 for the starring role in Reflections Of A Golden Eye.Kazan has a real feel for the times in Wild River. It's not only good entertainment, but ought to be assigned viewing by political science professors who want to demonstrate the impact of the New Deal in American life during that period.And this review is dedicated to a man who worked for over 15 years to get the Tennessee Valley Authority through Congress. Senator George W. Norris was one of the giants of the US Senate, his is a career for the most part that ought to be studied and emulated. We could use a lot more like him today in government.