Kazan's mid-career masterpiece introduced a newly ruminative tone and political subtlety to his work that offers a tempered reconsideration and questioning of the very New Deal notions of progress (to which his own early career was intimately tied). One of Kazan's personal favorites, Wild River pits a timid yet determined Tennessee Valley Authority official—portrayed by a fascinating Montgomery Clift—against a hamlet targeted for imminent flooding and a young resident—played by a radiant Lee Remick—smitten by his eccentric charm. The harnessing of nature takes on almost Biblical dimensions, thanks to the magnificent Cinemascope photography and the electrifying performance of Jo Van Fleet as the town matriarch who alone understands the river's unspoken diluvian powers.

An early screen credit was awarded Kazan as co-director of this concerned intervention about Tennessee strip miners, produced by the radical left-wing documentary troupe Frontier Films, with a screenplay by Calder Williams and music by Alex North, who would eventually compose cinema’s first true jazz score, for A Streetcar Named Desire.