Wind Across the Everglades (1958)

Masterful Movie

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The Final Battle...No, not Ecologists vs. Poachers...But the real battle!Auteurists vs. Writer-Driven Cinema!The showing in NY was a trip, with a Schulberg relative coming to the showing - at a Nicholas Ray retrospective, no less! - to announce that this was not only NOT a Nicholas Ray film, but CLEARLY a Schulberg film (this was simply bad manners, given the occasion). And she went on to talk about how drug-addled Ray was during the shooting (that was worse than bad manners, given the occasion).Anyway...if you care...Lots of Ray stuff: the created "family unit" of outlaws, with their twisted bonhomie and their rituals; the sense that living in a particular "natural" environment creates an alternative sense of right and wrong, and that someone who enters into that environment has to confront this other reality, even if it goes against his or her belief system. Christopher Plummer finds himself in a position akin to that of Peter O'Toole in The Savage Innocents, Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground,Susan Hayward in The Lusty Men.On the other hand...lots of stagy soliloquies, lots of scenes which don't get to really inflect; they just make their plot points and move on. One can imagine a lot of footage which was discarded because it didn't "advance the story".Some beautiful swamps and animals.It's a real mess - but a beautiful mess.Film-making...it can be a real heartbreak for the directors who believe in their personal vision.

And in Nicholas Ray's canon,it's not the only one.Few directors (if there were any) displayed ecological concern fifty years ago.Maybe John Huston did when he filmed the plight of the elephants in "roots of Heaven" at the time.But it was not as successful as "wind across the everglades.They say Ray did not finish the film (once again it was not the only one;see also "55 days at Peking" )but ,apart from his plea for the everglades wildlife,we find one of his permanent features:the Walt/Cottonmouth relationship is very complex and verges on a father and son one (for that matter ,see also " knock on any door" "the lusty men" " run for cover" ..) The picture with these birds flying away is sublime.

I saw this title as a young boy (7 or 8) and got seriously warped by its palpably sensual cinematography and scenes of fetishistic violence. It takes place in fin de siecle Florida with Burl Ives as the head of a bunch of exotic bird poachers and Christopher Plummer as the driven game warden trying to shut down their action. The violence I remember is a fight between Plummer and one of Ive's gang called 'Jockey' who lays about Plummer viciously with a riding crop before Plummer beats the crap out of him in a pool of ankle deep muck. Ives picks up the half-dead Jockey (who always wears riding silks) and carries his senseless, mud-drenched form as tenderly as a child, "You can sleep in my bed tonight, Jockey" he says - creepy as hell. In another scene a man is tied to a 'poison tree' and left overnight to die, screaming. The next morning we see his body, still tied to the tree, his face covered with oozing blisters. Horrible. And yep, I'd love to see this flick again!

I first saw this film as a youngster, and it had a huge impression on me. As this movie showed on TV semi regularly back then I watched it many times. I was blown away the first time and every other time I saw it. With each re-watching I always picked up on new things I'd missed or didn't understand before, I was a kid after all.Wind Across the Everglades invokes raw power, beauty, commitment, wilderness, redemption, morality, Human Nature, Nature.This movie really needs to be re-released on DVD. I haven't seen it in maybe 36 years or more, but still consider it a major "Classic" that has everything going for it..great acting, great story, a non-partisan moral.