Wild Style

Wild River (Elia Kazan, 1960) - con+
What to make of this preachy drama? It centers around a government official (Montgomery Clift) who oversees the building of dams in an area of Tennessee heavily affected by floods. The small population that's left there is to be relocated so the job can get under way, but lo and behold it's not as easy as to simply buy them out. It's not all "evil government vs the small man", because staying in the rural area of the banks of the river is a safety hazard for both the people and their homes, and for the most part, the film's sympathies lies with the evictors, not the evictees.

However, as Clift gets to know the locals, including grumpy matriarch Jo Van Fleet and lonely widow Lee Remick, all the familiar themes of convention vs progress, and countryside vs civilization overwhelms whatever good intention Kazan had in the first place. Clift becomes a beacon of reason and rationale, while the dumb locals prove to be just about the most stubborn and ignorant bunch you'd ever find. Kazan crams it all in - racism, good ole boys, forbidden relations, etc - and it's just too much; most of the time he even handles it pretty heavy-handedly. Clift is adequately restrained as the struggling official with a heart, but most of the bit parts are as poorly performed as they are lazily written.

***

The Savage Innocents (Nicholas Ray, 1959) - con
Anthony Quinn adds "eskimo" to his long list of realized celluloid ethnic characters in this flawed culture-clash film by auteurist favourite Nick Ray. This was Ray's first film with European backing, after fleeing Hollywood just a few years after the success of Rebel Without a Pause (and subsequent flops, including the interesting Party Girl and the outrageous near-masterpiece Bigger Than Life, which I also watched recently). The result is an ambitious but ultimately disappointing character study, shot in glorious 'scope, mixing outdoor locations with unconvincing studio sets. Quinn plays a naïve hunter who accidentally kills a white man and has to run from the law - represented by, among others, a young, crudely dubbed (and therefore by own request uncredited) Peter O'Toole. Of all the Ray films I've seen, this is the first real dud.