The River (French: Le Fleuve) is a 1951 Technicolor drama romance film directed by Jean Renoir and produced by Kenneth McEldowney.

A fairly faithful dramatization of the 1946 novel of the same name by Rumer Godden, the film's narrative follows a teenage girl's coming of age and first love, with the namesake river serving as both the backdrop and a central metaphor.

The film was shot in Calcutta, India, where Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who was then only a student of cinema, was able to meet Renoir for guidance.

[2] Harriet is an upper-middle class English teenage girl who lives with her family on the banks of the Ganges River in British India.

Later, eager to impress Captain John with her familiarity with the Hindu religion, or perhaps to divert his attention from Valerie, Harriet tells him a marriage story she has written, in which the mundane identities of ordinary peasants are subject to divine change and transformation.

Harriet sees him playing a flute to a cobra in their garden one day and commands him to inform their parents of the dangerous snake's presence, but she does not tell them herself because she is delivering some flowers to Captain John.

She runs away from home the night after the funeral and attempts to commit suicide by taking an unattended boat out into the middle of the river and stepping overboard, but Bogey's friend Kanu alerts some local fishermen, who rescue her from the water.

Thomas E. Breen was a veteran of the United States Marine Corps who was injured during fighting on Guam in 1944, resulting in the amputation of his right leg.