It ends by briefly describing how the Tennessee Valley Authority project was beginning to reverse these problems.

It was written and directed by Pare Lorentz and, like Lorentz's earlier 1936 documentary The Plow That Broke the Plains, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in 1990.

Both films have notable scores by Virgil Thomson that are still heard as concert suites, featuring an adaptation of the hymn "How Firm a Foundation".

[4] The two films were sponsored by the U.S. government and specifically the Resettlement Administration (RA) to raise awareness about the New Deal.

The RA was folded into the Farm Security Administration in 1937, so The River was officially an FSA production.