THE RIVER

One of Frank Borzage’s masterpieces, although incomplete, that made him known in Europe and admired for his extraordinary qualities. Allen John Spender (Charles Farrell) builds his own boat dreaming of the sea, lost in the Rocky Mountains. He leaves the mill in which he grew up and goes down the river in his own boat. In autumn, he is blocked by the construction of a dam across the river. The construction site is in turmoil: the boss, Marsdon (Alfred Sabato), has just killed an engineer who had fallen in love with his partner, the young and mysterious Rosalee (Mary Duncan). Marsdon is arrested and Rosalee rushes to the construction site, where she promises Marsdon to wait for him. The killer gives her his tame raven to keep an eye on her and protect her until he returns, while John witnesses the separation of the two lovers…

In the film, which has partly survived through countless vicissitudes up to the present day, there is a famous sequence in which Mary Duncan, in order to warm up her sick lover, covers him with her naked body, as well as the one in which the young man cuts down a tree in order to vent his desperation for love.