Le fleuve sauvage

A touching unknown Kazan film ('60) that delves into the American psyche like Welles did in Touch of Evil ('58)..kind of. The plot is too basic and pure to explain, but it's not. This is also Bruce Dern's first film and possibly Rip Torn's. Monty Clift is (post-accident) still a brilliant actor (with half a shattered face for 10 years) who conveys the ambiguity of job-man to this lovely, young mother (Lee Remick) who was not even nominated for an Oscar, and it's down Alice's Rabbit Hole with Jo Van Fleet (OScar winner in previous Kazan film playing much older than she really was..again..like actors should be able to do in famous Hollywood films) decrepit, sane, just and bigoted ...all in the same paragraph (while sitting in a rockintg chair) with mud, dogs, Negroes, corruption, and the Tennessee commission.

A wonderful film. An 8 out of 10. Best performance = Lee Remick. There are other gliding Southern performances that grace the Magnolia trees, gator bait, and overalls that we have all come to love in an artistic, American way. Find this one!

Lee Remick's own favorite among her movies, and fine late Elia Kazan, this historic romance of the TVA and progress vs. tradition is beautifully crafted, gorgeous to look at, exquisitely acted, and quite frightening in its depiction of potential mob violence. Cleverly adapted from two books by Paul Osborn, it takes its time spinning out a gripping tale of a government agent (a restrained Montgomery Clift, his private life a wreck, but none of it shows on screen) trying to evict a stubborn, proud old woman (Jo Van Fleet, magnificent; Shirley Jones won over this? Really?) from her island so it can be flooded and power brought to all those poor Tennesseeans. He enlists the aid of her widowed-mom granddaughter, Remick, and the relationship between her and Clift is wonderfully ambiguous and rich. It's intelligent, moving, and convincing, and nobody went to see it in 1960. Very worth seeking out.

I had to say this movie was so stunning for me. The beginning black and white newsreel of a man who lost his three children in a flood is actually a real clip and it is my grandfather, so I was so amazed to see this. He passed away in 1972. My father lost his brothers and sisters in the flood which was in the 1930s Trumansburg, NY. I believe is was the flood of 1935. How amazing to see an actual news reel of my grandfather!!! I had a hard time finding the movie until I come across it on ebay. My father once had it, but he ended up losing it as the movie was not marked it was a blank VHS and it was unfortunately thrown away. I am holding onto the movie that I got until his birthday. It will make a unforgivable gift.

This is a most remarkable film, chronicling a piece of Americana and presenting a compelling image of the tragedy of progress. And it is Jo Van Fleet whose utterly convincing and captivating portrayal of an 80-year old hillbilly woman (she herself was 45 years old) makes WILD RIVER a masterpiece. To reiterate what others have stated, the fact that her performance was not even nominated for an Oscar is an outrage! I tend to disagree with other reviewers in regards to the subplot between Monty Clift and Lee Remick; I feel their scene slow things down and I find myself fast-forwarding past them to get to the match of will between Clift and Van Fleet. I do, however, understand the necessity of the Chuck/Carol love affair - here you have a stubborn old woman who simply refuses to leave her lifelong home and a sensuous young woman who simply begs to get out! And Monty Clift becomes nemesis and savior. But their scenes together are a total yawn when the good stuff involves the reason Clift is there to begin with - not just his cat-and-mouse with Van Fleet, but all the other obstacles he faces from the rest of the populace of the rural south in the 1930's.

Still, an incredible film and worth viewing over and over again.

This movie features Jo van Fleet, a terrific actress who has been forgotten.

As usual, her performance carries the movie.

Some should remember her as the mother of the James Dean character in East of Eden, where her scenes with Dean are the most powerful in the film.

Elia Kazan, who directed Wild River, also directed East of Eden.

Kazan said in an interview he considered van Fleet a "great" actress, and expressed irritation that she had been "forgotten."

In Wild River the character she plays so believably is decades older than she actually was.

One previous reviewer here is so fixated on politics that he really uses his pretense of reviewing this movie to give his own personal political views, which are of no interest to me, and which do not belong in a forum of this type.