Plot
In the late 1890s, Cappadocian Greek young Stavros Topouzoglou lives in an impoverished village below Mount Argaeus in Ottoman Turkey. The life of the Cappadocian Greeks and Armenians of Kayseri is depicted, including the Derinkuyu Underground City traditional cliff cave dwellings in which Stavros' grandmother lives.
Stavros and his friend Vartan are planning to go to the faraway land of opportunity – America - together. Stavros witnesses a Hamidian massacre against Armenians which leaves Vartan dead, [1] and Stavros is nearly imprisoned trying to recover Vartan's corpse.
Knowing that the Greeks won't remain safe from violence forever, the family plans to send Stavros to Constantinople, the Turkish capital, to reestablish it there. He is entrusted by his father, Issac, with the family's entire fortune - in money, jewels, rugs, whatever is greatest in value and transportable, including the family donkey. Once successful, he is to send first for his sisters, then his brothers, and establish them safely and prosperously there as well. To do this he will start in the carpet business of his father's cousin Odysseus, buying his way in with his family's meager accumulated wealth. It is his father's dream, not Stavros'. He is still determined to go to America.
Stavros' odyssey begins with a long voyage on donkey and on foot through the impoverished towns and villages of the Turkish countryside. Along the way, the naïve young dreamer is robbed of everything, kills the thief in retribution, and arrives at his cousin's home penniless. The older man, who had deceived Stavros' father, is deeply disappointed, as he was counting on Issac's wealth to rescue his failing carpet business. In an attempt to exploit a valuable opportunity Stavros still represents to him, Odysseus proposes that his vital, handsome cousin marry the plain, needy young daughter, Thomna, a wealthy carpet merchant, Aleko Sinnikoglou. Stavros realizes this would mean the end of his dream and adamantly refuses, abruptly leaving the angry cousin.
Now homeless on the streets, Stavros survives by eating discarded food and working at backbreaking and hazardous jobs. He is befriended by a streetwise older man, Garabet, who helps him toward his dream. After nine months of scrimping and self-denial, Stavros has saved nine pounds towards the 110 Turkish pound passage to New York, but he has every penny thieved by a prostitute in his first sexual encounter. Clinging to Garabet, he ends up at a gathering of local anarchists planning a terrorist bombing; before they can disburse, they are slaughtered by police gunfire. Left for dead, Stavros ends up in a hospital and down to his last breaths, only to be thrown atop a wagon filled with dead bodies headed for disposal in the sea. He accidentally slides off and all but crawls back to his cousin's. Odysseus takes pity on the young man and allows him to recover at his home. Broken for the moment, Stavros agrees to marry his intended bride. Before the ceremony she questions his sullen silence, and he admits that he still plans to emigrate to America, using the dowry money to buy a ticket as soon as he can slip away after they are wed.
At this point Stavros becomes reacquainted with Hohannes, a young Armenian whom he had aided with food and clothing during his original voyage to Constantinople. Hohannes informs him that he is being sponsored to America by an employer seeking indentured labor, two year's worth in return for passage. By good fortune, Stavros begins an affair with the neglected middle-aged wife, Sophia, of wealthy Armenian-American rug merchant Artoon Kebabian, a client of his prospective father-in-law. Using money from Sophia Stavros buys a ticket to New York, and leaves Thomna heartbroken, without a word. He ends up on the same ship as the Kebabians, he in steerage, they in first class.
On the other side of the Atlantic the ship lies just offshore of New York City waiting to clear quarantine. Sophia sends her servant to fetch Stavros, and the two tryst while Artoon sleeps. He awakes, discovers the affair, and taunts Stavros, who responds with violence. He is sentenced by the ship's captain to be returned to Turkey.
Hohannes, who is scarcely able to pass inspection by the visiting immigration doctor by hiding his advanced tuberculosis, realizes Stavros will die if he is sent back, and he will die anyway. Returning his friend's generosity, he jumps off the ship to his death. Now short a man, the prospective American employer simply allows Stavros to assume Hohannes' identity and slip past immigration officials on Ellis Island, gifted a straw boater by Sophia and a new 'American' name by the chief inspector, "Joe Arness".
In return, even though he had paid his own passage, Joe will have to work Hohannes' off shining shoes, earning only his tips.
A closing voiceover reveals that Joe was able to succeed in New York, and one by one brought every family member over - but his father, who, last in the line, died before his chance came.
Production
Inspired by the life of his uncle, Avraam Elia Kazantzoglou, Kazan used little-known cast members, with the entire story line revolving around the central performance of Greek actor Stathis Giallelis, twenty-one years old at the time of production, who is in virtually every scene of the nearly three-hour movie. Production began in 1962.
The production, hampered by loss of its original financial backers, on-location hostility from Turkish authorities and onlookers, as well as other problems, continued into 1963. Powerful elements within Turkey came to be convinced that the country's national institutions and historical perspective upon turn of the 20th century events would be unfavorably portrayed by the Greek director and, when Kazan decided to transfer the troubled production to Greece, customs officials confiscated the cans of what they considered to be finished film, but owing to a prescient switch of labels between exposed and unexposed product, the valuable cargo survived. [2]
The picture was filmed on location at the Alfa Studios in Athens, Greece, as well in rural Greece, Istanbul, New York City, and at the Warner Bros. Studios in Hollywood, in 1.66:1 aspect ratio on 35-millimeter stock. Kazan makes a voice-only introduction during the opening scenes, a short voice-only epilogue in the closing scene, followed by a recitation of the lead actors and technical personnel of the film. Tom Holland narrates the picture.
