Beautiful River: Rediscovering The Ohio

In the summer of 1991, the "Always a River" museum barge sailed down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Cairo, Illinois, visiting some 22 river communities along the way. The museum barge featured exhibits chronicling the history of the river, although viewers see little of the barge during the program; instead, the focus is on the communities visited and the resurgence of interest in the Ohio River from various folk interviewed. Often conducted outside, these interviews usually feature substantial background noise (wind, people, etc.). Interviewees include employees of a sewage treatment plant, hotel owners in Cincinnati, author Don Wallace on the rise of river communities, a pair of theatre directors, and singer/songwriter John Hartford. In Owensboro, Kentucky, the camera captures Macon Ray in a one-man performance as Lincoln, who upon seeing slavery for the first time "decided I would do something about it if I ever got the chance" (considering Lincoln's position on slavery, this is a stirring-though most likely revisionist and apocryphal-anecdote). While interesting in bits and pieces, Beautiful River: Rediscovering the Ohio fails to tell a story, flitting from interview to interview with the river providing a rather paltry thread on which to hang a narrative. This will be of interest to Ohio River Valley libraries, but for others it's not a necessary purchase. (Available from: TV Image, 187 Greendale Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45220.)