[3] The movie's background, the director's Hollywood blacklisting, and subsequent debut of the film in England, is covered on the Di Donato website.

Geremio is swallowed in wet concrete; as he struggles desperately to breathe, his mind snaps, and he is transported to his sunny seaside youth in Vasto, Italy.

The scene depicting the Good Friday building collapse, the horrific fate of his paesano fellow workers, and Geremio's agonizing struggle for air, shocked the American reading public of 1939 and permanently ensconced these characters in 20th Century literature.

Geremio and Annunziata's oldest son, Paul, tries to find charity from local businesses and from the church, but with no success.

Distraught, Paul tells his mother that he no longer believes in God or in the afterlife, a confession that shatters her and for which he spends the final pages asking forgiveness.