When Vladimir (Williams), a Russian saxaphone player, arrives with an orchestra to play in New York, he decides to defect in the middle of a major department store. Although he has left a country of queues and poverty, he finds that the Big Apple isnt the Mecca he believed it to be, filled with racism, unemployment and violence.
Mazursky effectively portrays the media circus around the Russians defection and the bearded Williams is capable and surprisingly restrained as the idealistic Vladimir, accurately depicting his characters bewilderment at the strangeness of New York.