His attempt at burglary fails because he has a vision of blood and death that distracts him.

Thus he misses his big break – and discovers the next morning that Zeftel had lied to him, after he attempts to burglarise the home of Count Zaruski to steal the money Emilia needs to take Halina to Italy for her cure, and so that Emilia will marry him instead of the Count. To save Zeftel, Yasha performs a special show of magic and card tricks for the pimp and gives him money. He also knows that the man who is going to take her there is a pimp, who is selling her into sexual slavery.

Yasha knows that Buenos Aires is in Argentina, not America. Yasha anticipates success, but Zeftel arrives unexpectedly and innocently announces she is emigrating to America – to ' Buenos Aires' – where a man has promised her work.

Wolsky arranges for a booking at the prestigious Alhambra theatre in Warsaw. In addition to demonstrating a Houdini-style escape from a tank of water while shackled, Yasha convinces his manager/impresario Wolsky ( Lou Jacobi) that he can fly. Halina is ill and needs medical care, and Emilia knows Yasha will never be able to provide so she must keep herself free to marry someone who can pay for the medical treatment her daughter needs. The great loves of Yasha's life, and the great ambition of his love, are the aristocratic but poor widow Emilia ( Louise Fletcher), whom he would marry and her daughter Halina ( Lisa Whelchel), whom he adores as if she were his own. Magda's brother Bolek ( Zachi Noy) is an incompetent, and their mother Elzbieta ( Shelley Winters) is desperate. Among many others are the zaftig Zeftel ( Valerie Perrine) and Yasha's Polish Catholic assistant, Magda ( Maia Danziger), who tours and performs with him. On the road, however, he has plenty of women as company. Yasha is married to Esther ( Linda Bernstein), but he is rarely home in Lublin to see her and they have not been able to have any children. He tours the western reaches of the old Russian Empire. His great ambition is to figure out how to fly – an ambition he eventually achieves but not as a magic trick. Yasha Mazur ( Alan Arkin) is a turn-of-the-20th-century Jewish stage magician, womaniser, con man, and mystic. ( June 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.

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