Customer Reviews

Wild River [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is a shame this film has fallen into obscurity over the years. Though overshadowed by Elia Kazan's more heralded and flashier efforts, I have always found "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and "Wild River" to be his best. Thanks to a scarred Montgomery Clift and a young and earthy Lee Remick, "Wild River" has a feeling of quiet reality.

Monty's genius was to be so much the person he was portraying that he seemed to disappear onscreen. Clift's sensitive performance here, coming after the accident which altered his appearance, is one of his best. It is matched by lovely Lee Remick.

Clift works for the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and has come to Jo Van Fleet's rural home to move her off her land so room can be made for a dam. Clift is not uncaring and his sympathy for the older woman is complicated even further by his attraction to her young granddaughter, Lee Remick.

He is also unpopular because of his fair treatment of blacks whom he is employing to help build the dam. But the violence simmering just beneath the surface here is less on his mind than Remick. He cannot have her because of what he is forced to do. Yet it is torture for him.

Clift's sensitivity and Remick's heart, torn between what she knows he has to do and what she feels within for him creates a frustration for the would-be couple the viewer can really feel. One scene in particular, as Remick paces back and forth in front of a sitting Clift, reveals the ache in Clift which finally blows.

Beautiful location filming by Kazan adds a further sense of reality to this quiet yet moving film. This was one of Clift's best post-accident performances and it is sad it is only available in this region 2 format for those across the pond to enjoy. Perhaps soon it will be recognized for the quiet masterpiece it is and become available to all.

I agree fully with the reviewer from Bakersfield.

Internet Movie Database provided links to a source who could give me a NTSC copy for about $50. However, with compatible software and hardware you can see this PAL version in your computer monitor. This particular PAL version is technically (color and crispness of picture) much better than what I saw on television years ago.

This PAL region 2 version (just a few copies) is available in Amazon. I am sure more copies are available somewhere else.

If you copy the DVD to your computer hard drive (it is not copy-protected) you can play it with Nero Showtime and a compatible monitor, in my case, a Viewsonic VX922.

The picture in this version is crisp and the color is gorgeous!

the film means more to me than outher people, i lived just a few miles from were thay filmed in CALHOON TENNESSEE. the lady that lived in the house that was the point of the film was my aunt and lee remick lived in the house by the river at the rope raft that whent to my aunts house. all i can say is thay showed how it was back then as well as thay could lee remick was great and montgomery clift all though drunk most of the time was great at his job. I hope the movie will be on dvd soon, i waited for 2 years for the ilustrated man i hope it want take that long.

WILD RIVER may not have been a huge hit in its day, but given that it was directed by Elian Kazan, and had a noteworthy cast (with stars Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick and Jo Van Fleet all receiving critical acclaim if few award nominations), it would seem to be a prime candidate for a de luxe DVD release. Ironically, it's yet to receive any US DVD release at all. Very strange indeed. Here's a movie selected for preservation by the Library of Congress (2002) but is only available in NON-USA format as a DVD.

Well, perhaps there'll come a day when the situation will be remedied, and reviews like mine will be but dated commentary. Can't come soon enough in my book.

And speaking of books, I remember snoozing through the lessons in my high school history classes and barely skimming the textbook on the history of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the bringing of electricity to the rurual South. I mean, it was then 1968 and electricity everywhere was a given, wasn't it? Who cared about such ancient history, why that was thirty some odd years before.

Well, FORTY plus years on, I realize how important a good understanding of history really is--and how brief a time span thirty, forty or FIFTY years really is in the course of human history. And I've come to realize how dramatic and literary treatments of historical events, stressing as they do the human element, really makes them come alive. Why if my 16 year old self had been exposed to a screening of WILD RIVER, it just may have helped me connect with that particular chapter of US history a lot more readily. (The fact that Lee Remick was a teenage crush of mine certainly would have helped).

WILD RIVER's storyline seems chock full of readymades (if not actual cliches): there's a feisty old widow whose refusal to sell her island home is holding up progress on the TVA's efforts to develop the Valley economically and to put an end to its cycle of endless flooding. There's also a somewhat heavy handed treatment of racial issues, with the enlightened Northerner (Clift) doing his bit to bring some justice for the community's black population--and endangering himself and his new love (Remick) in the process. None of this is especially surprising or dramatically overwhelming. But it does provide a framework for some very honest scenes--mainly between Clift and Remick--in which conflicting emotions are expressed in refreshingly honest ways.

Getting at the truths of the human heart was director Elia Kazan's true forte. Yes, the history lesson is a valuable one, but what makes this film so compelling is the human element. The legitimacy of Kazan's reputation for being an actor's director was never better exemplified than in WILD RIVER. Only Jo Van Fleet is permitted to chew the (truly breathtaking) scenery--as would seem to be her (and her character's) right. Remick and Clift turn in more nuanced and tentative performances, in keeping with the tentativeness of their situation. No false notes are hit in their scenes together--or with other actors. A lesser film might have had Remick's jealous hometown beau (Frank Overton) engage in fisticuffs or worse with the newcomer, cityboy who succeeds in capturing his gal's heart. Instead an odd alliance is actually formed when the decent hometown boyfriend breaks down and warns his rival of plots against him by the racist local populace.

Lee Remick always cited her role WILD RIVER as the best of her career, which might surprise fans of DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES or ANATOMY OF A MURDER, but it makes sense. Her character here Carol Garth Baldwin is more multi-dimensional that the alcoholic Kirsten Arnesen Clay of the former film or the wanton Laura Manion of the latter. Her scenes with Montgomery Clift have a ring of authenticity that is still quite rare in American film. You feel as though you're eavesdropping on real conversations, actual heart-to-hearts. And that's not easy to achieve. Kazan and Co. did it here and it's a downright shame that the movie is so hard to get a hold of in its native land.

This film provides a valuable insight to the workings of the New Deal. It's a rare story that has at its center a bureaucrat working for what he considers the collective good and a resident who presents the argument for the singular. I strongly recommend this film for use in courses studying the 1930s. It might also work for government or political philosophy.

Too bad the film has not been released domestically.