Desc: Panama Canal: Directed by Stephen Ives. With Michael Murphy, Matthew Parker, Julie Greene, Frederick Allen. This film chronicles the remarkable story of what was the largest and most ambitious engineering project in history, in one of the most hostile environments on earth. It recounts the long history of the dream of an isthmian canal, and tells how the collapse of an ambitious French canal effort, doomed by poor planning and rampant disease, provided an opening for a United States eager to announce its expanded presence on the world stage.