Wild River

1960

English

7.5

♡ 9

92%

84%

1930s

Action

based on novel or book

Elia Kazan Director

Albert Salmi as Hank Bailey

Bruce Dern as Jack Roper

Malcolm Atterbury as Sy Moore

Frank Overton as Walter Clark

A young bureaucrat for the Tennessee Valley Authority goes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of a stubborn octogenarian from her home on an island in the river, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.