Filmmakers Harvey Moshman and Chuck Coppola do a yeoman job in detailing the worst peacetime maritime disaster in American history. On the morning of July 24, 1915, the Eastland, a well-promoted (but poorly designed) Great Lakes passenger boat half-overturned in the Chicago River. Although the water was shallow and the dock just a few feet away, the steamer had been packed beyond its capacity with employees (many of them ill-paid young females) of the giant Western Electric Company. They had felt compelled to jam on board in order to attend a giant publicity-stunt company cruise and picnic planned at the Indiana beaches.
Instead, more than 800 people drowned or were crushed, a freak tragedy that overwhelmed Chicago's safety and mortuary forces and brought out both heroism (a local youth dubbed the "human frog" for impulsively diving repeatedly into the water to bring out more victims) and a dastardly corporate cover-up of the capitalist greed and incompetence that caused the horror (narrator here uses the loaded phrase "no collusion" when a rigged courtroom trial ultimately finds the bosses not guilty).
While local newspaper media covered the scandal in detail at the time, the Eastland disaster ultimately slipped into obscurity; the point is made that, unlike the glamorous Titanic luxury-liner sinking of the same era, victims here were working-class and largely immigrant, already largely faceless and discounted in American society (and partially accused here for causing their own deaths). Only as the last survivors were dying out in the 1990s did Chicago start memorializing the casualties.
A memorable cast of characters ranges from Japan-born Chicago press photographer Jun Fujita to famed attorney Clarence Darrow. Re-enactments and CGI-assist depictions of the ship are enhanced by much material from the time, including newsreel footage stated to have been repressed. Exemplary regional history, the video comes highly recommended, especially for Illinois and Great Lakes-oriented collections. Highly Recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P.