In this acclaimed production of John Steinbeck's classic morality tale, award-winning actress Colleen Dewhurst stars as Mordeen, a wife driven to desperate measures to give her aging circus performer husband a child. Dana Elcar, Donald Madden and Tony Award winner Myron McCormick round out the talented cast of this televised Broadway Theatre Archive production, produced by Lewis Freedman and Henry Weinstein.

Colonial representatives gather in Philadelphia with the aim of establishing a set of governmental rules for the burgeoning United States. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams charge Thomas Jefferson with the task of writing a statement announcing the new country's emancipation from British rule.

Most mid-19th-century Mississippi River boys dreamed of occupying that pinnacle of power and glamour, the pilot house of a riverboat. In a riot of local color, this film tells how, unlike many, Sam's dream comes true. A callow teenager, he talks the tough but consummate Horace Bixby into making him his apprentice on the "Paul Jones," eventually following him to the much finer "Aleck Scott." Meanwhile, he is already spinning fantastic yarns to everyone from awe-struck lads ashore, to fellow "cub pilots", to young lady passengers who catch his eye. Things temporarily take a turn for the worse when Bixby must attend a meeting and leave Sam to work under Brown, a dour tyrant with a grudge against him.