SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Tockinit not horrible nor great

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

gavin6942 A TVA bureaucrat (Montgomery Clift) comes to the river to do what none of his predecessors have been able to do - evict a stubborn octogenarian (Jo Van Fleet) from her island before the rising waters engulf her.I appreciate the attempt to use a real setting: Exterior locations for "Wild River" were filmed on Coon Denton Island on the Hiwassee River, upriver from Charleston, Tennessee; in the town's old business district; and on a peninsula west of Cleveland, Tennessee, on Chickamauga Lake. I also appreciate how this was the debut film of the now-legendary Bruce Dern.But this is also just a great story of progress and property rights. You can understand where the TVA is coming from and their quest to provide power for the people of the region is a good cause. But you also have to respect the old woman. She might be offered a good deal of money, and eminent domain may be the law of the land, but there is something very American about holding one's property as the highest ideal.

tieman64 In response to the Great Depression, the United States initiated the "New Deal", a series of domestic projects (and reforms) designed to assist and placate the poor. One such project was the Tennessee Valley Authority. A federally owned corporation, the TVA attempted to provide flood relief, economic development, jobs and electricity for the Depression afflicted Tennessee Valley.Elia Kazan's "Wild River" stars Montgomery Clift as Chuck Glover, a TVA planning commissioner. Chuck's responsible for relocating towns and villages surrounding a recently erected hydroelectric dam. Standing in the way of this "progress" is Ella Garth (Jo Van Fleet), an elderly matriarch who owns Garth Island. For the hydroelectric project to be completed, Chuck must remove Garth from the island. Taking Garth's side are her family members and several black workers.An odd and at times very original film, "Wild River" is preoccupied with the twin sides of progress. Chuck's hydroelectric dam brings "development" for many in rural Tennessee, but also uproots communities and removes thousands from their land. More than this, this "progress" results in many self-sufficient, agrarian landowners (and workers) being absorbed into a new mode of social organisation. Those displaced from their land may be compensated with houses, electricity and property, but also now find themselves dependent upon employers, the state and those with capital.But whilst Kazan, a jaded communist, shows state and private employers (often operating in cahoots) robbing the individual of a certain "self sufficiency", he is careful to also show the opposite. Old Ella Garth is your typical rugged individualist. A "self made" woman, she's a caricature of those riled up Southern conservatives who're always moaning about the "gubbament" imposing its will upon others "for their own good". But Kazan makes it clear that Garth herself relies upon a small army of black workers, many of whom live in terrible conditions. It is not difficult to see why these blacks would run to Chuck and so reject the seemingly "benign" Ella Garth.Indeed, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, a series of violent floods changed the voting patterns of African Americans, leading directly to the Democratic Party's rise to power. During these floods, places like Mississippi and Tennessee saw the loss of arable land. Along the Mississippi River alone, some 127,000 miles of land was swamped, and more than one million homes were destroyed; 1 percent of the country's population at the time. Most of these were African Americans, hundreds of thousands of whom fled to refugee camps. In these camps, policed by the National Guard, no one could enter or leave without a pass and thousands were forced to work for no wages and toil at gunpoint. Torn from their land by the floods, these blacks slowly found themselves becoming part of a kind of neo slave caste. Before and after these floods, things for them were no better, many caught in debt servitude, sharecropping, Jim Crow segregation, hounded by lynch laws and Ku Klux Klan riders and so forth. It's thus no surprise that many African Americans saw New Dealers as offering a "way out".Kazan's "Wild River" doesn't go into all of this. What Kazan does well, though, is show how the New Deal merely led to new types of problems. Once they leave her, Ella Garth's black and white workers aren't emancipated, but enfolded into a new model of exploitation. Their wages pushed down, beholden to others and stripped of their autonomy, they become a new type of work horse."Wild River" sports a subplot involving Chuck's romance with Carol (Lee Remick), a relative of Ella Garth. But does Chuck honestly love Carol? Is his relationship with her a means of gaining trust with the family and so undermining Ella? Ironically, Chuck's abuse of power and authority – he attempts to have Ella judged mentally incompetent – echoes the tactics used by Carol. When Chuck and Carol's romance comes at an impasse, for example, she essentially blackmails Chuck into marriage. Chuck agrees to this marriage, but there is a sense that, though the duo love each another, their romance is founded upon subtle games of manipulation."Wild River" is one of Kazan's most exquisitely photographed films. It unfolds at a leisurely pace, capturing the tempo of a Southern life which explodes only occasionally into bouts of violence or racial hysteria. A wooden raft becomes the film's chief motif, a raggedy structure which bridges the old world and the new. Chuck spends most of the film floating back and forth on this raft, attempting to get others to join him on his journey into the "future". It's a future which is sceptically portrayed, Kazan unsure of "progress", how progress is "sold", who it actually benefits and what its hidden ramifications are. For all its flaws, the films is unique in the way it captures a shift in the very way America was socially organised.7.5/10 – Dull and dated in many places, and unable to fully exploit an interesting premise, "Wild River" is nevertheless one of the most interesting melodramas of the late 1950s. See Ken Loach's "Bread and Roses" and Mark Rydell's "The River".

weezeralfalfa Very much reminds me , in it's basic theme and plot, of the much older film "Trail of the Lonesome Pine", shot in pioneer 3 strip Technicolor, in 1936. Both involve the sudden intrusion of the federal government or a large corporation into a primitive backwoods Appalachian community, with promises of much bettering their lives by the exploitation of some local natural resource other than farm land or forests. Both involve a budding romantic relationship between the chief spokesman for the agency and a beautiful young woman in the community. Both include a sacrificial local victim or two, related to the initiation of the project. However, in the earlier film, the community had a choice whether or not to allow this intrusion, whereas in the present film, the government can't take no for an answer...This film also brings up memories of "The Grapes of Wrath", in that the community or extended family is forced to move. As in the present film, this move is much harder on and more resisted by the grandparent generation than the grandchildren generation. The present film involves more introspection than these former films. This is a strength of Montgomery Clift: the male lead. Unlike a few reviewers, I found Monty generally good in his role, if lacking the warmth of his counterpart in the earlier film: Fred McMurray. He appeared to have good romantic chemistry with Lee Remick. However, his character is conflicted about whether it's a good idea for either to marry her, thus he often holds back.There are 2 primary issues to the plot, along with an induced third issue. Issue #1: Can TVA field administrator Chuck(Monte) convince stubborn matriarchal grandma Ella and her loyal entourage to vacate her island kingdom before the Tennessee river behind the new dam begins to rise, to eventually flood this island? Or will she and the others have to be forcibly removed? Issue #2: Whether grandma's beautiful young widowed granddaughter(Lee Remick, as Carol), with her 2 kids, will marry her local middle-aged boyfriend: Walter, or Monte? I'd like to delve into the second issue first.Although Carol initially sides with grandma in her hostility toward Monte, as a TVA rep, she soon begins to warm up to him, as she faced the reality that she will soon have to leave this island. She finds Monte a better romantic prospect than Walter. Also, he promises to provide a ticket to a new kind of life, far from his community. At times, Monte encourages this dream. But when Carol asks for a definite commitment, he balks. We don't understand why. Does he have a girlfriend or wife? Is he 'not the marrying kind'? Is he afraid that Carol would not be accepted socially by his friends, with her backwoods background? But, later that night, he changes his mind, after Carol joins him in trying to beat off an ugly mob that has come to intimidate him into leaving that area for good. Seems like it's usually raining when these 2 are together in a house or car, This helped provide a more intimate atmosphere..The relationship between Walter and Monte is curious. Walter doesn't seem very upset that Monte has suddenly appeared as a new rival. In fact, he and Monte get drunk together, then go to grandma's house to, once again, try to convince her to leave. Later, when Walter arrives with the mob come to chase Monte out of the area, he changes sides, entering the house to help Monte and Carol to beat off the mob. All together, it looks like Walter is more like a friend and protector of Carol than a serious lover, and he accepts that status.I assume the title refers to the river in its destructive flood stage, and also to how grandma wants the river to remain. She states that she believes that nature should be left undisturbed. Yet, she and her husband vastly altered the landscape of her island ,as Monte fails to point out. She's not interested in having access to electricity from the dam. Carol correctly predicts that grandma won't long survive leaving her island. Presumably, she simply wills her death, almost immediately after she moves to her TVA-financed new home.... Monte's boss initially tells him he doesn't want grandma and the others forcibly removed, if possible, But when the flood waters are ready to rise, he changes his mind as he definitely doesn't want grandma or any others to become a martyr by staying and drowning. By then ,nearly all the others had left the island, and accepted the TVA terms. However, Sam, an old African American, refused to leave ahead of grandma, even when she insisted. Earlier, he refused to sell her his old dog at any price. Thus, he represents another old person set in his ways, refusing to act on the reality that his home would soon disappear under water. Clearly, the many African Americans(AA) living on this island were satisfied with their lives. Ditto grandma's several sons on the island. One claims he never has to work here. Presumably, the AAs did all the heavy labor, thus he could spend his time lazing around with his fishing rod.Monte has another group angry with him. He's hiring local AAs to work on TVA projects for $5.00 a day, the same as for white men. The usual wage for AAs here is $2.00/day, less than for whites. Monte refuses to make a difference in payment based on race. Thus, many of the AA hired help of local farmers are leaving for the better paying job, or the land owners are forced to pay them more to keep them. This is the reason for the mob destroying his car and damaging Carol's house they are in.

jartell I just found this reference on IMDb to this powerful movie that I saw on TV when I was a child. Actually, for a strange reason, after seeing in the news the flooding taking place in the Midwest these days (March 27, 2009) I recalled the images on this movie so vividly. But of course, for a kid's imagination nothing could be more unforgettable than the beauty of Lee Remick. And I loved the chemistry taking place between her and Monty Cliff. Now, however, reading the comments in this page I realize that I had not paid enough attention to the performance of Jo Van Fleet as the matriarch who refuses to comply to the government's request to leave her land. And in addition to this, "Wild River" happens to be an Elia Kazan movie! I've been searching this film for years and I just realized that I couldn't find it simply because there is not a DVD available. Not even a VHS copy! That's outrageous! Please, everyone sensible to good movies should ask the same to the powers that be: We want a DVD of "Wild River"!