Very well executed

Absolutely brilliant

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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)

The DVD case with this release carries a comment describing the film as a 'hidden gem'. How often has that promise been fulfilled for buyers? In this case, for me, it definitely was. I like most of Elia Kazan's films, and 'Wild River' is an excellent example of his work.Kazan gets fine performances out of the whole cast. He tells the story without flourishes or cinematic indulgences, pacing the action and character development with wonderful skill and feeling. (A fine musical score contributes to the mood.) The film starts out with newsreel footage of flooding along the Tennessee River in the 1930s. The use of historical material is a simple and effective way of setting up the situation: the attempt by a Tennessee Valley Authority bureaucrat to persuade a woman landholder to move off the island she owns in the river, the last property not yet repossessed for a dam project. But Kazan's film is not of the 'cinema realism' type. It is a study in character: the bureaucrat who comes to do a job in the public interest, the old woman who refuses to surrender her birthright, and her widowed granddaughter who craves to rejoin society. The story takes these three characters through a convincing and interesting journey. There are no plot surprises, and yet the outcome is never obvious. Jo Van Fleet, as the woman hold-out, gives a powerful portrayal of someone soured in her rightness. Montgomery Clift, as the bureaucrat, is as good here as in any of his films. The reserved quality of his acting style is put to good use, in character terms, by Kazan. Lee Remick, as the granddaughter, demonstrates the emotional range and subtlety of performance that mark her best work. She is also strikingly beautiful. This film is a treasure.

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.

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"!