Wild River (1960)

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phil noir
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Wild River (1960)

Post by phil noir »

A couple of days ago I watched this Elia Kazan directed film about the damming of the Tennessee river, and the US government's attempts to move people off their land before their homes were flooded. It was set in 1934.

I didn't think it was perfect - it sometimes looked as if parts had been edited out and this left the flow of the story rather jumpy. And sometimes the Tennessee accents defeated my understanding, I'm afraid.

However, I have thought about it quite a lot since. There were moments in it which were so unusual and touching that I would recommend it to anyone as a kind of hidden treasure. Montgomery Clift played the lead - he portrayed an unusual type of fair-minded but self-tormented character, a man who never wins a fight. (He gets beaten up twice, and at the end of the film is left face down in the mud; we are so used to seeing the hero triumph that this was almost shocking.) He looked quite fragile (perhaps as the result of his car crash a few years earlier), but I thought his performance was excellent - he created a very appealing human being. Also very good was a young Lee Remick as a local widow with whom he falls in love. Before she spoke, I was concerned that she was too beautiful to be convincing, but her acting was excellent.

One line that struck me in particular was when MC said to LR: 'There are worse kinds of erosion than the erosion of land - when your capacity to live becomes eroded.'

Has anyone else seen this film? I'm not sure how well-known it is.
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moira finnie
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Post by moira finnie »

Hi Phil,
I kind of like this Elia Kazan movie too--especially since it refuses to take one side over the other in this conflict between the TVA rep (Montgomery Clift) trying to bring what he believes is progress to Appalachia and the deeply rooted rural opponents to the project he's trying to help implement--led by the backwoods woman played by Jo Van Fleet. The lack of clear-cut heroes or villains may have been even handed, but might be one reason why this movie isn't better known. I think that Lee Remick was terrific as the young widow attracted to the fragile, decent Clift character, who is, in his less masochistic moments, effective as a flawed guy who is just trying to do his job, and finds himself falling for this rural Venus (Remick). He seems to have little to offer her, emotionally or financially (though I suspect that a bureaucrat's pay might have seemed a fortune then to someone in Remick's situation), but he is a way out of the path set for her by her tradition-bound family.
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I also liked parts of Van Fleet's flinty performance, especially her interactions with the black residents of her rural world on the island, but wondered if she would survive for long after leaving her land. Despite my respect for Jo Van Fleet as an actress, (it takes a bit of nerve to be so tough in female characterizations, especially in the '50s), I've never been able to warm up to any of her appearances on screen, though this one shows her fragility as well as her strength rather well.

Best of all, in his underwritten role, might have been Frank Overton, who always seems to inhabit his character's lives completely, even when his "more appropriate" choice as Remick's mate carries a degree of menace. I think he was a very fine, un-showy character actor.
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Even though Lee Remick's career seemed to evolve into a series of potboilers as she grew older and American movies grew less nuanced, thinking about her early work in A Face in the Crowd (1957), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Sanctuary (1961), The Days of Wine and Roses (1962) and this movie, makes me realize what a marvelous actress she was, from a very early age.
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Post by jdb1 »

Moira, thanks for mentioning the under-appreciated Frank Overton, who was, it seems, in every TV drama of the 50s and 60s that John Dehner and/or John Anderson wasn't in (or sometimes they all were in one together). My impression of him is that of a small-screen (most of his work was for TV) supporter very much like Robert Ryan (wonder what Mook thinks?). He could be very warm, or very menacing, as you point out.

I should have included him in the thread about distinctive voices; his was a voice that I found instantly recognizable.
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moira finnie
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Frank Overton

Post by moira finnie »

I hadn't thought about Overton's voice before, but, of course, thinking back on his moments in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a quietly fatalistic and stoic acceptance of life as it is in his flat, yet warm voice that can break your heart. Do you have a favorite or lesser known of his performances that you would recommend, Judith?
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Post by jdb1 »

Nothing comes to mind - he just seems to have been always there, sort of like Whit Bissell.

Overton was a stalwart on so many television dramas of my youth. I remember him being in quite a few episodes of The Defenders, and I think he played the DA in some of them. Then there was his work on The Twilight Zone, and the original Star Trek. He was also a regular on the series Twelve O'Clock High. He made many appearances in the popular anthology drama series of that time, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alcoa Theater, as well as many of the dramatic series. I remember him in a Dr. Kildare episode - something about obesity, I think.

He played the sheriff in To Kill a Mockingbird, and one of the wastrel brothers in Desire Under the Elms. I think he was also in Dark at the Top of the Stairs.
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ken123
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Post by ken123 »

Frank Overton had a very small role in the film No Way Out ( Fox - 1950 ), which starred Reichard Widmark, Linda Darnell,and in his first film Sidney Poitier. In the film Mr. Overton can be seen sitting in the doctor's lounge smoking. :wink:
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phil noir
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Post by phil noir »

Thanks for all the feedback. Interesting that Frank Overton's name should come up. I nearly mentioned him in my first post: I was very impressed by his acting. His character - Clift's rival for Lee Remick's affections - seemed initially threatening, but then another side emerged - of someone who could not walk away from a violent situation without trying to do the right thing. He portrayed very well, I think, a man torn between wanting to win for himself the woman he loved and being unable to compromise his integrity even if this meant losing her.

He is obviously a familiar face in American TV and cinema, but I have to say I'd never heard his name before - and I don't recall seeing him in anything either.
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