A series of three film reports by Trevor Philpott on The Mighty Mississippi

The story of two boats which earn their keep on the brown waters of the Mississippi. One, the Delta Queen, is the last of the overnight steamboats, inheritor, of all the glamour and the legends, gelling a few days' adventure and romance to the lucky few who can afford to pay the price. The other is the America, biggest of all the towboats, with the power to push 40,000 tons of cargo against the current. It is manned by its own peculiar breed of men, tough and independent; men who are isolated for 30 days at a time on a moving island of steel.