After having emigrated to America at the beginning of the century, bricklayer Nathan Becker returns with a black friend to his shtetl because of the 1929 economic crisis. Becker starts work in a building yard created under the First Five Year Plan; Becker is unable to keep up with a Soviet worker who uses scientific techniques while Becker’s productivity is the result of capitalist exploitation. However, he is not totally defeated: American building techniques can be copied and put to better use by Soviet builders. This is the second film by Boris Shpis (1903-1939). Originally a stage designer, he joined the Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS) in the early 20s and worked as an assistant to Kozintsev and Trauberg. The lead actor, David Gutman (1884-1946), was a master of satirical sketch comedy. The screenplay was written by one of the greatest Soviet Yiddish language poets, Peretz Markish.