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.
Montgomery Clift
Lee Remick
Jo Van Fleet
Albert Salmi
Jay C. Flippen
James Westerfield
Bruce Dern
Barbara Loden
Frank Overton
Malcolm Atterbury
Robert Earl Jones