Swamp Water **** (1941, Walter Brennan, Walter Huston, Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Virginia Gilmore, John Carradine, Eugene Pallette, Ward Bond) – Classic Movie Review 8976

Master French film-maker Jean Renoir’s 1941 American début Swamp Water [The Man Who Came Back], made while he was in wartime exile from German-occupied France, is an unusual, dramatic thriller, set in Georgia swamps, where fugitive Tom Keefer (Walter Brennan) lives with his daughter Julie (Anne Baxter). Enter adventurer Ben Ragan (Dana Andrews), who naturally falls for Julie (Baxter) and tries to get Keefer (Brennan) off a murder charge after he convinces him that he was framed by the real killer.

The normal rules don’t apply to this film. There is not a particularly good yarn, with plenty of suspense or jokes, nor are there even especially gifted performances. But it is filmed with great imagination and splendidly eerie otherworldly touches, with the film’s main stars being the atmospheric camerawork and lighting in J Peverell Marley’s black and white cinematography.

Even it sounds as though Renoir was having trouble with English in trying to make the most of Dudley Nichols’s dialogue in his screenplay, based on Vereen Bell’s novel, Swamp Water is still a little gem.

Walter Huston also stars as Thursday Ragan. Also in the cast are Virginia Gilmore, John Carradine, Eugene Pallette, Ward Bond, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Mary Howard, Russell Simpson, Joseph [Joe] Sawyer, Paul E Burns, Matt Willis, Dave Morris, Frank Austin, Edward Clark and Mae Marsh.

Producer Irving Pichel directed uncredited some scenes. Renoir and executive producer Darryl F Zanuck clashed permanently over location filming, budget, schedule and costly camera setups. Zanuck changed his mind about sacking Renoir, but heavily edited the film after production.

Despite having the main role, Andrews is the fourth credited actor.

Baxter replaced a bitterly disappointed originally cast Linda Darnell.

Remake: Lure of the Wilderness (1952), with Jean Peters, Jeffrey Hunter and Constance Smith, and Brennan reprising his role, though with a different character name of Jim Harper.

Andrews, Huston, Baxter and Brennan also star in The North Star (1943).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8976

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com