Swamp Water is a beautiful, hauntingly lyrical rural drama, adapted surprisingly faithfulness by Dudley Nichols from Vereen Bell's book -- only a few of the sensibilities regarding rural justice and vengeance in the novel have been softened, in keeping with the Hollywood Production Code of the period, but the emotional texture of the book is well captured. Director Jean Renoir, in his Hollywood debut, brings the same sensitivities to this drama that he subsequently brought to The Southerner. Dana Andrews, who usually played urban characters, proves surprisingly effective as Ben Ragan, the young backwoods hero of the piece, and he, Anne Baxter, and Walter Huston -- and especially Walter Brennan as Tom Keefer -- have beautifully convincing on-screen chemistry in their roles. Huston and Brennan, as two ends of a personal/moral lever at the center of the script (with Ragan and his conscience as the fulcrum), are perfect in their roles, and Baxter -- in her screen debut -- gives a heartbreakingly convincing performance as Keefer's daughter, a young woman wronged for events over which she had no role or control. The supporting players, who include Eugene Pallette, Joe Sawyer, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, and Ward Bond, are equally fine. And the cinematography by Lucien Ballard and J. Peverell Marley, makes this movie a joy to look at, as well as to watch, from beginning to end.