No.284 : Wild River (1960)

Wild River at the IMDb

Set in 1931, the film opens with some back and white archive footage of the terrible damage and loss of life suffered when the Tennessee river bursts its banks. This sets the scene for the drama which follows which sees Montgomery Clift’s Tennessee Valley Authority trouble shooter's attempt to clear a valley before the dam causes the area to be underwater. As normally happens in such situations everyone has sold up and moved on apart from one settlement.

This is run by a fearsome octogenarian who along with her simpleton son and granddaughter, Lee Remick, runs a slick operation that sees all the tenant farmers do all the work. This is the deep south remember so don’t tread here if you can’t take some pretty on the nose racial abuse. Grandma isn’t keen to move so Clift tries to undermine her by paying all her workers an eye watering $5 a day to help clear the land ahead of the flooding.

Huge mistake! The locals don’t like the black workers receiving the same pay and the local chamber of commerce worry that this fat pay day will ruin the local economy, which relies on the virtual slave labour of the black community.

Not being too worried about all the bother he’s causing Clift soon gets friendly with the widow Remick and lives up to his character’s name ‘Chuck’, as he chucks it up her with indent haste - this is the 1930’s remember.

Things come to a head as the US Marshalls are sent in for an eviction and the Good Ole Boys lay siege to Clift’s love nest. Will the old lady leave? Will the valley be flooded and will race relations be settled once and for all?

Directed by Elia Kazan (’Streetcar’, ’Waterfront’) this was a superior offering and, although it did dip in the middle a bit, it was engaging and tense.

Clift was good in the lead and I liked that he wasn’t a butch hero as he got his clock cleaned every time he squared up to the local bullies. He was clearly a lover more than a fighter as he was invited to stay overnight in Remick’s shack the first day he got her off the island. The cantankerous old granny was good fun with her nastiness clearly been brought about by fear of change.

The film was a bit dated in it’s depiction of black workers with many simpering to Clift with questions about where electricity comes from "do you wring it out the water?" one asks. To be fair Clift’s character is a progressive offering trips to the dam and fair pay to one and all. This approach is a bit naive and he does concede at one point that he forgot he was in the south.

Remick is a bit simpering in the female lead and too keen to fall into Clift’s arms and desert old grandma. The showdown at the end was good although they didn’t hold true with the premise of Chekhov’s gun - a big shooter was found and fondled after an hour, but never seen again!

This was an interesting production that will serve as a historical document detailing the real life efforts to bring safety and electricity to a bunch of yokels who were fine as they are thanks very much, and to a film made 30 years after the event which would be radically different if made today.

Best Bit : Here‘s $4 get the best bottle of wine you can find.  17/23

No.45 : Watermelon Man (1970)

Watermelon Man at the IMDb


Jeff Gerber is a white middle aged insurance broker who lives with his wife and two kids in an affluent white suburb. He works out every morning and gets his kicks racing the bus to the office, to the annoyance of his fellow commuters. He is also a little bit of a racist. Not in a Ku Klux Klan sense, but he likes ribbing the black bus drivers and lift attendants that they may be rioters and gun toting hoods.

He is somewhat surprised when he wakes up as a black man, almost as much as his wife, who although sympathetic to blacks is less keen to be married to one. Initially Jeff is in denial and tries all sorts of potions to bleach himself white again. He also consults his doctor and thinks of suing the company who made his sun lamp.

He soon accepts the situation and has to learn to live with the sort of prejudices that he once ladled out. Things come to a head when he starts to get threatening phone calls and then a delegation from the neighbourhood requesting he leave lest their house prices suffer. It’s not all bad, as the previously standoffish Swedish secretary becomes a lot more sociable when Jeff gets some colour.

With his wife leaving him and the neighbours buying him out of his home Jeff decides to move on with his life and embrace his new heritage.

If you don’t get the message behind this film you have clearly underwent a frontal lobotomy. The characters are all such vivid shades of black and white, pun intended, that you can’t but fail to see that racism is a bad thing. When we meet Jeff he’s an amiable and likable soul but our goodwill is soon eroded as he encounters people of colour. He’s not bad as such, just crass and ignorant. When he transforms the boot is on the other foot and Whitey, to a man and woman, becomes a total bigot. It's kinda like a bit racist to say all white people are racist, isn’t it?

The film’s agenda from the off is pretty clear, and it isn’t that we’re all equal, it’s that black people are downtrodden and the whites are all bastards. This may have been fair currency when the film was made in 1970 but now it seems stupid and offensive.

There is no reason given for the transformation, although repressed genes and soy sauce are mooted as possibilities. Like ’Groundhog Day’ you just have to accept that’s how things are and not bother looking for a reason. The ‘white’ Jeff looks a bit odd and it’s obvious from the off that it’s the black actor ‘whited up’. There was probably no other way to make the film but it is certainly no surprise when the big reveal takes place after 20 minutes - the guy just looks the same. Maybe that’s the hidden message!

There were a few funny scenes such as the black Jeff walking into a shop and the assistant immediately sticking his hands up. It was also funny when Jeff went on his usual run only to be stopped by cops asking what he’s stolen.

Apart from the odd laugh the film’s message is too relentless to call this entertainment, and the jaded one sided viewpoint turned me off entirely. Jeff seems to accept his position with no trouble at all and by the end he’s training up for a revolution. If the message had been one of integration and acceptance the film would have been a lot more worthwhile. As it was it came across as bitter, nasty and just a little racist itself.

Best Bit : Chasing the bus
‘W’ Score 11/23