This was a commercial failure for Elia Kazan, one of the key directors of postwar American cinema. But today this study of an old woman's intransigence when faced by the Tennessee Valley Authority's need to buy up her property in order to build a dam proves to be an intelligent and moving film. Montgomery Clift gives a superbly tender performance in one of his last and most tortured roles, and Lee Remick is touching as his confidante. There's also a sharply etched portrait by Jo Van Fleet (East of Eden) in the role of the old woman, and watch out, too, for Bruce Dern in his movie debut.

A young bureaucrat for the Tennessee Valley Authority goes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of a stubborn octogenarian from her home on an island in the river, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.