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
as Chuck Glover
Lee Remick
as Carol Garth Baldwin
Jo Van Fleet
as Ella Garth
Albert Salmi
as Hank Bailey
Jay C. Flippen
as Hamilton Garth
James Westerfield
as Cal Garth
Bruce Dern
as Jack Roper
Barbara Loden
as Betty Jackson
Frank Overton
as Walter Clark
Malcolm Atterbury
as Sy Moore
Robert Earl Jones
as Sam Johnson (uncredited)
