America America

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]

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. Read full review

The hero is so blandly uninteresting that there's nothing to hold the movie together.