Synopsis
A young Anatolian Greek, entrusted with his family's fortune, loses it en route to Istanbul and dreams of going to America.
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Cast
- Stathis GiallelisStavros Topouzoglou
- Frank WolffVartan Damadian
- Harry DavisIsaac Topouzoglou
- Elena KaramVasso Topouzoglou
- Estelle HemsleyGrandmother Topouzoglou
- Gregory RozakisHohannes Gardashian
- Lou AntonioOsman
- Salem LudwigOdysseus Topouzoglou
- John MarleyGarabet
- Joanna FrankVartuhi
Recommendations
- 88
Chicago Tribune
One of the great movie family sagas, a fascinating revelation of both the dark and bright sides of the American dream. [05 Mar 2000, p.24C] - 80
Time Out
Certainly, it is one of the finest movies to deal with the plight of those thousands of immigrants who travelled in steerage to Ellis Island at the turn of the century. - 80
Variety
Elia Kazan gives a penetrating, thorough and profoundly affecting account of the hardships endured and surmounted at the turn of the century by a young Greek lad in attempting to fulfill his cherished dream - getting to America from the old country. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Elia Kazan drew from the experiences of his own uncle in this profound and exhilharating 19th-Century immigrant saga, made in 1963 and expressing passionately a love of this country. [27 Feb 1994, p.6] - 80
The New York Times
Mr. Kazan catches the poetry of immigrants arriving in America. With some masterfully authentic staging and a fitly hard-focus camera, he gives us as fine an understanding of that drama as the screen has ever had. - 75
The A.V. Club
It’s a crude, clunky piece of writing, hampered by variable performances and a leading man whose looks of silent resolve are more compelling than his line-readings. Yet the film has the elemental power of a classic immigrant story, revealing a young man’s single-minded, arduous journey to America through black-and-white images that evoke the country’s promise to the huddled masses. - 75
Slant Magazine
Filmed with a cast of largely nonprofessional actors, America America immediately strives to impress its audience with the raw reality of its immigrant narrative. - 60
Village Voice
The director's deepest instincts are less epic than dramatic, with the result that he gets sidetracked more often than his errant hero. The picturesque is gained too often at the expense of the picaresque, and the contour of a legend is obscured time and again by the pointless intimacy of a close-up. [09 Jan 1964, p.12]
