Elia Kazan directed Wild River, a rather balanced political tale, starring Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet, Albert Salmi and Jay C. Flippen.
The tale was adapted by Paul Osborn from two novels: Borden Deal’s “Dunbar’s Cove” and William Bradford “Huie’s Mud on the Stars,” drawing from Deal’s story of a battle of wills between the nascent Tennessee Valley Authority and generations-old landowners, and from Huie’s study of rural Southern matriarchal family for characters and their reaction to destruction of their land, and the controversial employment of African-American laborers by the TVA.
Grade: B+
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Theatrical release poster
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In 1937, Chuck Glover (Clift), the new head of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s land purchasing office, arrives in Garthville, a town located nearby the new hydroelectric dam.
Tasked with supervising the clearing of the land to be flooded, he first needs to acquire Garth Island on the Tennessee River. However, Ella Garth (Jo Van Fleet), the elderly matriarch of the family that has lived on the island for decades, refuses to sell. To avoid bad publicity, the TVA wants to acquire the island without exercising force.
Clearing the land is behind schedule because the mayor uses only white labor. Glover goes to Garth Island, but Ella and the other Garth women, including Ella’s granddaughter Carol Baldwin (Lee Remick), ignore him. Glover tries reasoning with Ella’s adult sons, Hamilton (Jay C. Flippen), Cal (James Westerfield), and Joe John, but relocating means that they have to work for living.
Ella is critical of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal to her black farm hands and their families. Glover stresses the benefits the dam will bring, but Ella denounces dams and the taming of rivers as going “against nature.”
Meanwhile, he befriends Carol, a widow with two children, who returned to the island. She is expected to marry Walter Clark (Frank Overton), a businessman in town.
The mayor opposes Glover hiring “colored labor,” fearing it will cause problems with white workers. As a result, Glover is urged to create segregated work gangs and pay black workers less, but he refuses despite threats.
After Glover and Carol get married, Ella is evicted from the island as her former workers fell the trees. At her new home, Ella sits on the porch, refusing to speak.
Before leaving the valley, the couple join her family and former workers to bury Ella in the family plot, the only part of Garth Island above water.
It was filmed in the Tennessee Valley,
It marked Bruce Dern’s film debut.
Critical Status:
The film was selected for National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002.
Cast
Montgomery Clift as Chuck Glover
Lee Remick as Carol Garth Baldwin
Jo Van Fleet as Ella Garth
Albert Salmi as R.J. Bailey
Jay C. Flippen as Hamilton Garth
James Westerfield as Cal Garth
Barbara Loden as Betty Jackson
Frank Overton as Walter Clark
Malcolm Atterbury as Sy Moore
Bruce Dern as Jack Roper (uncredited)
Robert Earl Jones as Sam Johnson (uncredited)
Credits:
Produced, Directed by Elia Kazan
Screenplay by Paul Osborn, based on Dunbar’s Cove, 1957 novel
by Borden Deal, Mud on the Stars, 1942 novel by William Bradford Huie
Cinematography Ellsworth Fredricks
Edited by William H. Reynolds
Music by Kenyon Hopkins
Color process Color by DeLuxe
Production and distribution: 20th Century Fox
Release date: May 25, 1960
Running time: 110 minutes
Budget $1,595,000
