Oh! Lee Remick! There’s a name I haven’t seen in a minute…
This starts with a voice-over infodump about floods along the Tennessee river, and we’re apparently going to follow people working for the TVA who are buying land from recalcitrant people along the river? Or something? It doesn’t quite make the “elevator pitch” criteria (unless it’s a long and boring elevator ride), but it seems … er … It seems like a weird way to start the movie, laying out the concept like that.
Is there gonna be romance?
Hm… is the aspect ratio correct here? People seem a bit squashed? Vertically?
And that image up there is 853×364… (/ 853.0 364) => 2.34! I guess they just have some kind of squashed-looking faces?
Oh, that sounds wonderful!
Oh, Lee Remick… I was thinking of Lee Van Cleef!
Not the same kind of thing at all! But most amazing of all:
There’s somebody else in this movie with exactly the same name! Doooing!
Yeah! Take that, city slicker!
This is really entertaining. And quite unlike any of Kazan’s preceding movies. I think he’s hitting the beats he didn’t quite hit with Baby Doll? That was supposed to be funny, but instead was… confusing.
This movie has so many good lines.
*insert Beavis sounds here*
Subtle framing.
Clift’s performance is a bit confusing — he often seems diffident, but at the same time he’s being kinda heroic (here he’s talking to the local KKK boys (I think) who don’t want equal pay for the Black people)… It’s… it’s… almost like he’s trying to do a more serious version of Cary Grant? But not quite getting all the way there?
This woman does the best side eye ever, though.
Wow, this is a masterful performance. He’s managed to portray the most repugnant character in movie history.
This movie was unexpectedly really good. I guess perhaps Kazan wanted to go total melodrama, but he’s good at this.
Wild River. Elia Kazan. 1960. ⚅
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