Wild River

Both sections of the flavorful, vernacular-filled screen play have been given professional treatment.

This 1960 drama is probably Elia Kazan's finest and deepest film, a meditation on how the past both inhibits and enriches the present.

In studying a slice of national socio-economic progress in terms of people, it catches something timeless and essential in the human spirit and shapes it in the American image.

One of [Kazan's] least theatrical and most affecting films.

Kazan's films are better known for showcasing stratospheric Method-emoting over visual expressiveness, which makes Wild River's gorgeous imagery a shock...

Sympathetic to both sides, the movie pits tradition against progress, rugged individualism against the greater good.

It's an expansive work, distinguished by exceptional location photography, but, as ever, (Kazan's) focus is on complex interpersonal relationships.

Shooting predominantly on location in Tennessee, Kazan makes evocative use of the mist that hangs over the river like a lingering regret.

Montgomery Clift gives a superbly tender performance in one of his last and most tortured roles, and Lee Remick is touching as his confidante.

The grim inevitability of the eviction gives the film a melancholy power.

This dramatic tug-of-war between progress and tradition remains a memorable example of director Kazan at his best.

Evocative sociological/historical melodrama.