"In early 1930s Montana, in the small town of Colton, Maddy Aldridge struggles to make ends meet during the Great Depression. With her mother long dead, her stubborn younger sister fighting her at every turn, and her father's arthritis deteriorating so badly that she has to run the family store alone, her desperation grows by the day. Enter Jeffers Grimm with a proposition too great for her to turn down: open an illegal speakeasy in the mercantile's...

Andy Larson, wanting to get away from the bootleg crime and corruption of prohibition in North Dakota, moves to Wolf Point, Montana, to take on an easy job as a deputy sheriff.

"It is 1920, and both Prohibition and bootlegging are in full swing. When Isaac Bell's boss and lifelong friend Joseph Van Dorn is shot and nearly killed leading the high-speed chase of a rum-running vessel, Bell swears to him that he will hunt down the lawbreakers, but he doesn't know what he is getting into. When a witness to Van Dorn's shooting is executed in a ruthlessly efficient manner invented by the Russian secret police, it becomes clear...

Prohibition - Episode 1: A Nation of Drunkards Americans have argued over alcohol for centuries. Since the early years of the American Republic, drinking has been at least as American as apple pie. As Episode 1: A Nation of Drunkards begins, clergymen, craftsmen and canal-diggers drink. So do the crowds of men who turn out for barn-raisings and baptisms, funerals, elections and public hangings. Tankards of cider are kept by farmhouses' front doors,...

Prohibition - Episode 2: A Nation of Scoffaws On January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution goes into effect, making it illegal to manufacture, transport or sell intoxicating liquor. Episode Two, A Nation of Scofflaws, examines the problems of enforcement, as millions of law-abiding Americans become lawbreakers overnight. While a significant portion of the country is willing to adapt to the new law, others are shocked at how inconsistent...

Anabel Lee and her father have made a middle-of-the-night move from their former home to a remote hilltop house. When a young boy calls to the house, he brings trouble for Anabel and her father.

As the nation grapples with the strictures of Prohibition, Rosa Barclay lives on a Southern California rye farm with her volatile husband, John, who has lately found another source of income far outside the federal purview. Mother to eight children, Rosa mourns the loss of four who succumbed to the mysterious wasting disease that is now afflicting young Ana and Miguel. Two daughters born of another father are in perfect health. When an act of violence...

"Megan's voice is liquid gold. She dreams of becoming a star and leaving her miserable life in Jackson, Wyoming. Megan stumbles upon a dangerous secret; it is the height of prohibition and her in-laws are selling whiskey from their dude ranch. Fears are amplified when a rumor spreads of a prohibition agent coming to town..."--back cover

This videodisc explores the extraordinary story of what happens when a freedom-loving nation outlaws the sale of intoxicating liquor, and the disastrous unintended consequences that follow. The utterly relevant cautionary tale raises profound questions about the proper role of government and the limits of legislating morality. When the country goes dry in 1920, after a century of debate, millions of law-abiding Americans become lawbreakers overnight....