I might give it a rating higher than 7, except that I have not seen it since 1964.We had access to the USO in Nice, France when I was a Navy kid living in nearby Villefranche sur Mer, then the flagship port of the USS Springfield, the flagship of the Sixth Fleet.I had found an English copy of "The Diary of Anne Frank" in the villa we rented for the early part of 1964, so I knew a little about some past massacres and atrocities. But I didn't know a lot, and I knew zero about Armenians and their history.But this film, which I saw in a grainy print in an only slightly-dark theater (we kids saw movies during the day) had a lasting effect on me. FWIW, the other film in this theater which had a lasting memory on me was "Lawrence of Arabia." Such a treat to later see it in a widescreen, properly-dark, Dolby 70mm print (maybe even Cinerama, as it was shown at the Santa Clara, CA "Cineramadome," when it was re-released some years ago.)For several decades I had vague memories along the lines of "What was that movie I saw at the USO that involved the killing of Armenians and a long trek to America?" But before our new era of search engines, it was nearly impossible to track down.Some years ago I used Google and IMDb to narrow it down to this film. Sorry for the long delay in commenting here.Why is it shown so rarely that I cannot find a copy? Why in all the years I knew the name Elia Kazan did I not see clear references to it?I'd like to see it again.--Tim May, California

In this biographical look at an uncle's journey to America that would eventuate in his own arrival in the new land, director Elia Kazan warmly and somewhat ineptly plods it out in America, America. Slowly paced, repetitive and morosely performed it flounders a great deal of the way as Kazan attempts but fails to turn lead Starvos Gaillias into the Greek Dean with an endless parade of long pauses in overlong scenes. The result is one slow mostly low key show.Repressed by the Turks in their own country Starvros is chosen by the family Patriarch with the family fortune to get them out of their predicament and is sent off to Constantinople to invest in a rug business with a relative. Innocent that he is he is quickly exploited and exposed to the cruel world at large of unsavory characters and systems. Befriended and betrayed he is soon destitute but eventually works his way into a situation that upon marrying the owner's daughter will set him up for life. It's all very tempting but America remains the brass ring for him and things on the domestic front dissolve and he returns to pursuing that dream.At three hours in length America, America's grinding rhythm never attains much of a pace. Gaillias in the lead is all stare little emotion and incapable of stretching never mind even approach the thespian talents of a Brando or a Dean. Kazan gets around this by having his other characters perform over the top to his flat demeanor in which he is supposed to convey introspection and intent to reject the Old World but it fails miserably as Gaillias performance is bordered somewhere between comatose and zombie. Save for John Marley, the vaunted director of actors shows little of it here.Almost as distracting is the cinema verite style of Haskell Wexler's cinematography which seems terribly out of sync with Kazan's classic framing of powerhouse actors. Without either , America, America's sloppily meanders amid Kazan nostalgia and his inability to say cut to a project he was perhaps too close to craft with the artist's eye.

I saw America, America in 1963 when the movie came out and was extremely impressed with the way the years of the great immigration in the US was portrayed. Having Grandparents that immigrated from Turkey and Greece the images and the experience of the trip over to New York range true to the stories told to me by them. In a comment made in a recent blog the writer couldn't understand the desire of the immigrants to come to this country. The passion and the hope these immigrants had only could be understood by someone old enough to experience the whole immigrant movement of the 20's, 30's and 40's. The film itself has beautifully filmed images and a great film score. The film itself has been available as a PAL DVD and regional title in Europe and has not been released here in anything but VHS. Occasionally, it is shown on AMC but not too often. It appears that it has been tied up with some sort of legal issue. It is a perfect film for the Criterion Collection.

This is a great movie narrating the life journey of individuals who start their way from their original homeland escaping Turkish massacres and ethnic cleansing to New York, the place of the "poor and the tired" ...everything is great...scenes, narration, events, acting.This is a sensitive movie, with a good and impressive ending that tells a lot. In summary, it is the history of America of Immigrants, the shelter of persecuted from the viewpoint of victims of Turkish massacres in the beginning of the 20th century. Based on its content, I can say that it is the life history of all immigrants in USA.A good movie...worth 8/10!