50
A nicely told, occasionally highly emotional story, but the main purpose of the film seems to be to give writer-director Elia Kazan an excuse to pat himself on the back.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
Village Voice by Andrew Sarris
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]
80
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
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.
80
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
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]
88
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
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]
50
The New Yorker by Pauline Kael
The hero is so blandly uninteresting that there's nothing to hold the movie together.
75
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.