The subjugated life of the Cappadocian Greeks and Armenians of Kayseri is depicted, including the Derinkuyu Underground City traditional cliff cave dwellings, where Stavros' grandmother lives.

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 handsome young cousin marry the plain and needy Thomna, daughter of a wealthy Greek carpet merchant, Aleko Sinnikoglou.

Before the ceremony she questions his sullen silence, and he admits that he still plans to emigrate to America by using her 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 before his original voyage to Constantinople.

By good fortune, Stavros begins an affair with Sophia, the sexually neglected, middle-aged wife of wealthy Armenian-American rug merchant Artoon Kebabian, a client of his prospective father-in-law.

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".

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.

Uncredited: 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.

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.