Wild River . . . . . 1960

Apologies if this one's more plot summary than anything else. I'll cut it down as best I can. This drama, filmed on location in Tennessee, was the first Montgomery Clift movie I ever saw. All the major actors and actresses in the movie are excellent; the only problem I have with it is the fact that only two or three people in a scene are allowed to do anything, while the rest just stand or sit around and stare at nothing in particular. It may have been a technique to show their response to Montgomery Clift's character, being as he is an outsider, but after a while it starts to get on my nerves. It's probably just me, though.

It's the story of a man named Chuck Glover (played by Montgomery Clift) who works for the Tennessee Valley Authority. He has to convince an old woman to sell the home she's lived in for decades so they can build a dam and keep more flooding from occurring in the future. Chuck arrives at the TVA office for his first day on the job and the only one in the office who is allowed to speak seems to be secretary Betty Jackson, who says of the old woman: "I'd let her drown." This is not an option. The mayor advises Chuck to call in police force to remove the woman, whose name is Ella Garth, from her island. Chuck declines this suggestion as well.

So Chuck goes down to the island, where the Garths watch him warily. They've been through this whole routine before. As he tries to speak to Ella and her family, they one by one go into the house. After Chuck leaves, Ella resumes her seat on the porch, watching him go. Down by the river, the men are cleaning fish; Chuck tries to talk them into selling. They refuse and throw him in the river. He calls it a day and returns to his hotel, where one of Ella's sons tells him to come to the island the next day, and she will talk to him.

The next day, back at the island, Ella Garth is lecturing her people on the evils of Roosevelt, the New Deal, and the TVA. Once Chuck arrives, she waxes much more philosophical. To be perfectly honest with you, I find her arguments very convincing, but I also find Chuck's arguments convincing. A very tough call, if I didn't already know how it ended. So they all go to the family cemetery, where we learn that Ella's granddaughter Carol (the young and pretty one) is a widow with two children, and that Ella fully intends to die and be buried in the land she has lived on all her life. Carol is going to marry Walter, a man she doesn't love, for the sake of her children. She walks him back to the ferry, where he invites the black workers of the island to stop by the TVA office the next day. Carol goes across the river on the raft with him.

They go to the house on the bank of the river, where Carol and her husband used to live. She has not been there since his death. Monty's awkwardness and empathy in this scene are almost tangible. Just watch him--sincerity doesn't come any purer than this. He is Chuck Glover, TVA agent. She later returns to the island, and the moment where she crosses on the ferry is certainly touching. The exchange of glances between them, the smile and wave that becomes an awkwardly tender moment, is certainly a credit to the two involved.

Chuck meets with the mayor, who reports that the clearing of land is behind schedule; he is shocked when Chuck announces his intention to hire the black workers from Ella's island to help, and to pay them the same as the white workers. A Mr. Moore pays Chuck a visit at the TVA office, with some of the local WASP men, who insist on segregating the work gangs, and paying them less than $5 a day, which is what the white workers get. Mr. Moore suggests $2, and indirectly threatens Chuck. The men leave only when the black workers arrive. Chuck shows them the houses they will be given and then goes to see Carol at her house by the river. She is still cleaning, trying to put the house back in some kind of order.

Cut to the next day; Chuck, Carol and her two children drive through town, where the men observe that she has a new beau and decide to tell Walter, her intended. Chuck et al. go out to the house on the bank and meet Walter there; Chuck drives him back into town. He's really a likable guy. When they arrive at Chuck's hotel, the light in his room is on, and Walter warns him not to go inside. Chuck's line: "I want to pay you a compliment-- Carol could do worse." He goes into the hotel anyway. (Comment--the song in the background in the hotel sounds a lot like "Lucky Star" from Singin' in the Rain.) The man in Chuck's room is the owner of the local gas station, angered at paying all the workers equal wages, which he claims cost him the money he had to pay the hand he had to hire to replace the one he had to punish. Chuck disagrees. A confrontation ensues. Afterwards Chuck and Walter get plastered and go to see Ella; Chuck passes out in the pumpkins after telling the old woman he knows what she's fighting for--her dignity.

Next morning is rainy; the old woman's sons and lawyer go to Chuck to tell him they want to declare her incompetent and sell the land for her. Chuck doesn't want it done that way--he respects her. He goes to Ella and tells her what has happened. She still refuses to leave. Then he goes to see Carol, who asks him to take her along with him when he leaves. His expression in this scene tells what his words do not. She confesses her love for him, and is pleading with him when Walter arrives to warn him that the men from the town have arrived. Some dance on the roof; others try to flip his car; still others fire rifles into the air. They roll his car down the hill and start ramming the house with their trucks. Chuck refuses to be scared out, but a Mr Bailey starts a physical fight, even hitting Carol. The Sheriff looks on, then suggests that the crowd go home. Chuck's line: "You know, someday I wish I could win maybe one fight." He asks Carol to marry him. They are soon married.

Ella is sweeping her porch as they arrive in their little boats to evict her. She leaves, taking only her cane, a small box and a handbag. The men begin chopping down trees and demolishing the house. They take her to her new house, a nice little place with a big front porch and a rocking chair. She dies not many days thereafter. The old house is razed and the old woman is buried in the old cemetery, now a tiny island in the middle of the river. They fly out on a plane, as Chuck had arrived in the beginning, and fly over the new dam. Presumably Chuck, Carol, and the two children live happily ever after, but who can say for sure?

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