The Pawnbroker (1964) User Reviews

Never has internal pain been so vividly portrayed.

[wisewebwoman · 9/10 · 1 January 2004]

This is in my 50 best movies of all time list.

Rod Steiger,a gifted actor, is at his very best here portraying Sol Nazerman, a pawnbroker who is completely shut down emotionally.

Through flashbacks, some fast, mostly slow, we see both the joy and subsequent horror of Sol's life in Nazi Germany, when his wife and children are swept into the camps and killed. Sol's deepest pain is that he survived and he carries it visibly. Nothing touches him. He is removed from humanity, living a life outside anyone else's.

This is never more exemplified than at his shop, where he is behind bars, often in shadow, while humanity moves outside, sometimes pleading with him, sometimes just wishing to make an emotional contact to no avail.

Brilliant black and white photography. Quincy Jones' music underscores this, it is jazzy 60s type of music, loud and vibrant, totally contrasting with the dark, dead world of Sol.

The supporting cast are terrific and the outdoor location shooting in New York is riveting. The movement of street life against the heaviness of Sol's plodding.

I still find it hard to believe that Rod lost the Oscar to Lee Marvin in the forgettable "Cat Ballou" (!!) that year.

This has to be seen by any serious lovers of movies. The last scene, done in one continuous take is heartbreaking, Sol finally getting in touch with the pain he has buried so deeply. Gut wrenching stuff. 9 out of 10.

Steiger gives greatest performance of all time

[edwardi-koch · 10/10 · 9 February 2006]

Rod Steiger gives the greatest lead-actor performance I have ever seen in the title role of the Pawnbroker. Lumet's direction strikes no false note and neither does the incredibly well-researched and painfully honest script. It's hard to believe how virtually forgotten this true masterpiece of a survivor's private hell. It shows very vividly that even those of us lucky enough to survive the camps need to be ever more rare of spirit to survive without significant trauma scars. Steiger extracts every piece of emotion from his character with a performance that exceeds all that came before it and has never been surpassed. Every aspiring actor needs to view Steiger's performance to realize how magnificent it truly is.

psychological classic

[nl11087 · 10/10 · 23 January 2005]

A classic. One of the few if not only who portrays not the atrocity at the surface, but the trauma afterward. No evil SSers in their black uniforms of death. It might have been more entertaining and simple to understand. Instead the movie captures the evil in the victim. There are the walking dead. Those who survived. For them living was nothing but survival. The setting is NYC of the 60s. This movie will outlive most movies. It is a true classic in the psychological genre. The only minor flaw is the clownesque character of Jesus. Rod Steiger puts down an excelling performance as the character of the pawnbroker. A very esthetic filming in black and white.

You think you're depressed.

[st-shot · 7/10 · 11 November 2009]

Harlem pawnbroker Sol Nazerman wants to be left alone. A death camp survivor whose wife and children did not get out he has withdrawn from the world as much as possible in order to cope. The down and out people that frequent his shop get little more than his standard offer. There is no small talk, haggling or eye contact. Take it or leave it. Jesus, his ambitious assistant is treated with the same attitude except when Sol decides to impart some brutal life lessons on what it is to be a "merchant." Grim as his existence is Nazerman seems content to let his life slip away without the pain of feeling anything. This all changes when it's revealed he's running a front for a Harlem crime boss to launder cash. Forced to confront his involvement in criminal activity and constantly reminded of his concentration camp past Nazerman descends even deeper into his own private hell.

From start to finish The Pawnbroker is one tragic journey. Save for the optimistic Jesus the film is populated with characters in various forms of desperation. Rod Stieger as Nazerman is at times almost too painful to watch as he slips in and out of catatonia between the callous and cold diatribes he serves up to those attempting to reach out to him. Jaime Sanchez as Jesus is a bit too strident and Geraldine Fitzgerald's out of her depth social worker too clueless but Brock Peter's stylish thug is a potent dose of reality and highly effective.

Director Sidney Lumet's direction lapses into heavy handedness (slo mo, overlong flashbacks) on occasion bogging the film down while at other times "nouvelle vague" technique produces some powerfully edited scenes. Boris Kauffman's smoky cinematography successfully establishes mood and place stealing shots on Harlem streets and imprisoning Nazerman within the maze of cages in his shop and Quincy Jones quirky score partners nicely with the action and setting.

The Pawnbroker can be a difficult film to get through since the suffering remains unrelenting and Lumet's pacing is erratic most of the way but Stieger's towering performance makes it well worth the ordeal.

A notable film, but not a perfect one.

[GHCool · 7/10 · 24 August 2007]

I have mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand, I admire the way the director, Sidney Lumet, and the editor, Ralph Rosenblum are willing to take chances and challenge us through an unorthodox editing style that reflects the main character's state of mind more than it serves to move the plot along. It should come to no surprise after seeing this film that Lumet came from a theater tradition where he worked for many years as an stage actor and director. His best films are character-driven, and Lumet has a unique ability to get the very best performances out of his actors. The Pawnbroker is as much Lumet's film as it is Rod Steiger's. This is the best performance of a very distinguished career.

That being said, the pacing is slow and some of the plot elements aren't made very clear (such as the money laundering scheme). With the exception of Sol and Jesus's relationship, the rest of the relationships in the film are handled a little sloppily. Despite the incredible and convincing performances, it is sometimes difficult to know exactly what each character expects from one another. There really isn't a goal that drives the plot forward, but that's not necessarily a weakness of the film. Lastly, this is a bleak film; one of the saddest and most hopeless I have ever seen. I would have liked to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, but perhaps there can be no "happy ending" for people like Sol Nazerman.

An absolutely stunning film...

[turtlewax · 10/10 · 31 July 2001]

Although the supporting cast is uniformly excellent (Brock Peters especially so), they are really only believable props to what is, essentially, a one-man performance by Rod Steiger.

And what a performance it is! Steiger grabs your emotions, and maintains a hold long after the final credits roll. He sucks all the oxygen out of the room, and you're not able to draw a deep breath until it's over.

For some reason, this movie seems to have faded from public awareness, and isn't all that easy to find. I first saw it in 1965, and then again about 30 years later; it packed the same emotional wallop the second time around.

Both Steiger and director Sidney Lumet have done plenty of excellent work since The Pawnbroker, but this remains the highwater mark for both.

It is, unquestionably, one of the most powerful films ever made, and that's a might tough act to follow.

Some Very Good Acting Makes The Film Compelling

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 21 February 2005]

The career of Rod Steiger can be used as a warning that quantity is inferior to quality . He might have appeared in ON THE WATERFRONT , DR ZHIVAGO , and THE SERGEANT but he also appeared in some awful crap like THE AMITYVILLE HORROR , THE KINDRED , MODERN VAMPIRES and THE LAST PRODUCER . In fact the only other actor I can think of who has a similar shocking inconsistency of roles is Robert DeNiro , and neither actor can use money as an excuse for appearing in so many turkeys since their worst roles happened at the end of their careers

I would rate THE PAWNBROKER as Steiger's best all time performance . He might have won the Oscar for best actor for IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT but we see the zenith of his career in this film . Steiger is Sol Nazerman , holocaust survivor now running a pawnbroker shop in New York City amongst a lot of seedy untrustworthy characters . Jews are history's great survivors but because of the rest of humanity's inhumanity towards the Jew it seems to have left scars on their psyche - Very suspicious by nature and with a not very friendly mannerism Steiger captures this survivors persona perfectly . There's little to add to this . Method acting at its most perfect

If there's a problem with the film it's that it doesn't seem very cinematic . It could be the original novel by Edward Lewis Wallant , or it could be the way the novel is adapted to screen , or it could be to do with director Sidney Lumet . Looking at Lumet's resume I'm struck at how much of the director's work is based on stage plays : 12 ANGRY MEN , THE HILL , THE OFFENCE , this movie isn't but it certainly feels like it was culled from the theatre with its limited set of ( Interior ) locations and the use of close up shots of characters faces . It's not much of a problem since it emphasises the performances and I can't repeat enough how good Rod Steiger is , but the directing isn't as superb as Lumet's earlier 12 ANGRY MEN

Classic, one of my all-time favorites

[pbasofin · 10/10 · 9 July 2002]

It's strange to say that this very grim movie is one of my all-time favorites. "The Pawnbroker" might make you suicidal in it's deep cynicism of the human condition, but I think there is a positive side to the film. The main character, a deeply-wounded Holocaust survivor, initial has no feelings for anyone or anything--he's just going through the motions of life. But by the end of the film he learns that people are not all bad--and maybe that's the most shocking revelation of them all!

Certainly Rod Steiger's greatest role. Do see it.

Definitely worth seeing

[jgepperson · 7/10 · 3 September 2006]

Pauline Kael hated this movie. She called it "bad" and "terrible." Leonard Maltin gave it 4 stars, called it "important" and The New York Times also raved calling it "remarkable" and "brilliant." My opinion lies somewhere between. I don't think the movie really works. It's confusing, although I think the confusion is meant to be sort of impressionistic. There are some embarrassing moments and it is sometimes a tad arty. Ideas are suggested and not always clarified. Nevertheless, it's worth seeing. I live in Manhattan, where most of the movie was shot. I think anyone who lives in Manhattan will be entertained (the subway scene, the sequence filmed at Lincoln Square, a shot of Avery Fisher Hall, Nina Simone and Flip Wilson's names on the marquee at the Apollo) but it also makes New York and its environs seem like a depressing, claustrophobic hell. (I wish it still seemed that way to the tourists and yuppies that flock here.)

The main reason for seeing the movie, aside from the urban atmosphere, is the actors. Steiger is sometimes too intense, bordering on self-parody. But it's still a fascinating performance. All the other actors are equally fine. Kael and Crowther in The New York Times went out of their way to praise an actor they both called "old Juano Hernandez." He is heart-breaking.

The nudity must have been shocking at the time. There is an implication of evil homosexuality in the Brock Peters character. I must check Vito Russo's book "The Celluloid Closet" to see if he picked up on it.

Recommended!

Edgy but imperfect

[moonspinner55 · 4/10 · 22 January 2005]

Rod Steiger doesn't so much give a great actor's performance in "The Pawnbroker" as much as he presents a seminar on film about great acting. He spits out his lines, contorts his face and becomes mired in bitter, embattled rage. We get few other dimensions from Steiger and, even at the picture's close, I felt little about his character's progression because the actor himself is still teaching class. As a Concentration Camp survivor immigrated to New York City, Steiger cannot do anything simple: his pain is grandiose, unsubtle. As for the plot, everything is spelled out for us to read, and director Sidney Lumet refuses to let the audience do any additional work. The look of the picture is edgy (pushing the boundaries of cinema in '64 with a gritty scenario), but the rest is flattened out, made too easy. The flashbacks are well-done (especially a haunting shot involving rings on the prisoners' fingers), but Quincy Jones' music is too jazzy (particularly at the end) and the dialogue, courtesy screenwriters Morton Fine and David Friedkin, is too direct and forceful. Eventually, the film is simply off-putting. ** from ****

Visually stunning, provocative drama.

[mdm-11 · 5 October 2004]

Powerful drama centering around elderly NYC slum-area pawnbroker (Rod Steiger in Oscar nominated performance), tormented by his painful memories of Nazi concentration camp nightmare. Embittered, he brushes off all friendly people in his life, insisting that nothing matters and emotions are wasted.

Apparently "playing the system" for years, allowing king-pin thugs to use his store as a money laundering "front", while collecting his "cut", the no-nonsense pawnbroker is suddenly plagued by flashbacks, showing how his young wife and son are killed, and at once wanting to stop the evil workings of his hoodloom infested slum neighborhood. When the young "apprentice" he hired lays his own life on the line to protect him from being shot during a robbery, the pawnbroker shows his first human emotions since the horrific day he lost his family.

The flawless direction, masterful black & white cinematography, haunting Jazz score, along with innovative handling of the themes (racism, prostitution, social reforms, etc.), make this nothing less than a masterpiece. There is a sequence with prolonged nudity, considered daring during the "Hayes Code" years, even if it appears tame by today's standards. The scenes are not gratuitous, but essential to the plot. Still these scenes may make this film unsuitable for pre-teens.

Like Shindler's List, this is a film many may find painful to watch. By 1965 standards, the mere attempt of giving insight into the evils of the Holocaust was a strong move. The resulting product withstood the test of time and will endure. Named as his personal favorite work, "The Pawnbroker" gives us Rod Steiger's finest performance! Highly recommended.

A very impressive and dramatic movie

[SandroSt · 9/10 · 24 December 2004]

A very impressive and dramatic movie. I remember when I saw the first time this movie as a young teenager, I was deeply impressed by it, and after many years it still one of the movie that are important to me. The thing that hit me in the movie is the wire between the violence in the streets of the city and the violence in the Nazist concentration camp. It's the story without any hope of a survivor, a dead man walking, living an impossible life in the violent modern society. It has been the first movie that I saw about other movies about the Holocaust and still Ithink it's one of the more impressive about this argument. I saw many movies about the Holocaust, ma no one treats as this, the difficult life of survivors who lost their family.

Reconnecting With The World

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 25 May 2008]

The Pawnbroker is maybe the best of Sidney Lumet's New York based films. It tells the story of Sol Nazerman, former professor from Germany, Holocaust survivor, now making a living as a pawnbroker in Harlem. Rod Steiger got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. If he had lost to Sir Laurence Olivier for Othello I might understand, but losing to Lee Marvin for Cat Ballou? All three are performances on different planes of acting.

This is one of those films like Cyrano De Bergerac which rise and fall on the ability of the person performing the title character. With a minimum of dialog and a performance mostly of anguished expressions, Rod Steiger conveys the story of a man who's really seen the worst of what life has to offer and expects very little from humanity. And in Harlem no one rises among the dregs of society that usually come peddling the last of their dreams to him.

This film was done in 1964 and that was also the year of the Harlem riots, sparked by an NYPD officer killing a black teenager. My guess is that Sol Nazerman's pawn shop, white owned that it was never saw a scrap of damage. That's because one of the reasons he stays in business is because of a little money laundering on the side for Harlem racketeer Brock Peters.

Unfortunately Steiger's assistant Jaime Sanchez sees a huge amount of cash being deposited in the safe after office hours. He's an ambitious young man and not really deciding which side of the fence to fall on. It's more his indecision that leads to tragedy later on.

The highlight of the film for me is Steiger's equivalent of a 'hath a Jew not eyes' speech when he explains to Sanchez just why the Jewish people have the 'mercantile heritage' as he puts it. Too often it's forgotten that in all the places for thousands of years where Jews couldn't own land, this was what was left to them. On a side note that's one of the reasons for the State of Israel developing its own collective agricultural institution, the Kibbutz. It was to get Jews deliberate in touch with the land, to grow things on it and develop an attachment to it.

Some of the other cast members of note are Geraldine Fitzgerald as a neighborhood settlement house social worker who tries to penetrate Steiger's catatonic personality and a really wonderful bit by Reni Santoni as a junkie trying to pawn a radio and jonesing to beat the band.

Still the film is Rod Steiger's show, one of the few times he carried a film by himself and he does it magnificently.

Great performance, mediocre film

[piasa84047 · 6/10 · 24 July 2007]

Rod Steiger gives the best performance of his career, even better than his Oscar winning performance in 'In The Heat Of The Night'. He plays an elderly Harlem pawnshop owner that mostly thru the use of flashbacks, we find out survived a concentration camp, but lost everyone he cared about. Going thru those horrors have made him bitter, angry, distant. His experiences do not give him empathy for the suffering of others, such as his customers. Instead he despises them. When he finally lets loose nearly 30 years of built up emotion, Steiger goes from fear, to compassion, to anger, to guilt and to rage so quickly and so seamlessly he should have won the Oscar for finale alone. Sidney Lumet directs brilliantly, from extended scenes in the pawnshop, to the gritty streets of New York, to the flashbacks of the incredible horrors of the holocaust. But aside from Steiger and Lumet, the rest of the film is a mess. Quincy Jones jazz score with upbeat tempo at downbeat times seems out of place, and in fact quite jarring at times. The rest of the cast give performances too over the top to mesh well with Steiger or the material, especially Jaime Sanchez as the pawnshop assistant. Geraldine Fitzgerald's character really provides nothing to the story. She exists just to show us just how out of touch with the rest of the human race the pawnbroker is. But we already get plenty of that from his interactions with his family, customers and assistant. The screenplay was good as a singular character study of this man, but some of the dialog was horrible. Apparently in 1965 New York everyone and anyone who spoke to an elderly man called him 'uncle'. And they keep saying it. Everyone who comes into the pawnshop or runs into him on the street calls him uncle. Nobody calls him man, dude, old timer, sir, mister. It gives you the feeling that the dialog was written by somebody trying to sound hip and up with the times but without any idea of how to do it, someone unfamiliar with the street slang of the day. But in the end I still recommend seeing it, especially if you are a fan of a great performance.

I do not believe in God, or art, or science, or newspapers, or politics, or philosophy.

[lastliberal-853-253708 · 8/10 · 12 February 2011]

This has to be the most depressing film I have ever seen. I seriously stopped in the middle because I was getting so bummed out.

Rod Steiger as Sol Nazerman, the pawnbroker of the title is brilliant in the role. I doubt if there is anyone else who could have brought froth the depths of despair that Nazerman was experiencing. He lost everything, not just a family, but his who reason for living, and, as he says, there was nothing he could do about it. He was utterly helpless as his world crumbled.

He was a man without compassion or felling. His only comfort was money, and that really did him no good. It did not help him when he was reliving the flashbacks from the Holocaust. All he wanted to do was die, but apparently did not have the will to do it himself, so he set himself up for killing.

Steiger wasn't the only person that made this film worth watching. There was Brock Peters as a gangster, Thelma Oliver as the girlfriend of his assistant (Jaime Sánchez), and Sánchez himself.

The gritty and dark setting was perfect for the film. Sidney Lumet was excellent as the director.

good movie

[kairingler · 7/10 · 11 July 2013]

Rod Steiger delivers the performance of a lifetime in this sad movie. the story is about a man who lives in New York runs a laundry mat,, and starts having flashbacks of the War when he was in the Concentration Camps. the story has some flashbacks, and they are very poignant. the old man takes on a younger partner in the Laundromat,, but later on Sol finds out that the money used to run the business also comes from a brothel.. there's not a lot of action in this,, but it doesn't need to have action,, this movie is based on pure raw emotion,, hatred, greed, and all of the things incorporated in a great drama. it's sad to see the detioration of Sol as the movie winds along. this is a very powerful and shocking movie, not to be watched by the lighthearted, i'm German so i will definitely watch this again.

A death camp survivor in New York

[barryrd · 9/10 · 15 April 2011]

A powerful but grim movie about a Harlem pawnbroker terrorized by memories of the Nazi death camps, this is an excellent drama enhanced by a brilliant cast, on-location shooting in New York and at the end, a surprisingly strong note of compassion.

As the movie opens, we see Rod Steiger unwinding on a lawn chair in post-war Long Island, with its tidy homes and lawns. His sister in law tries to talk him into a trip to Europe but the morose Steiger has no use for a trip that would only remind him of the stench of death. He has flashbacks to the horrors he endured. These scenes continue to mar his life as we see men and women being brutalized and witness their barbed wired surroundings as prisoners of Nazi Germany.

Steiger, as the death camp survivor, delivers a superb performance as the man haunted by the memories of his wife and children whose lives were cut short while he was spared, only to live with the bitterness that made his own life so sad.

The customers at his pawn shop in Harlem get the cold, calculating treatment from this broken man as they try to cope with their own meagre means of subsistence. Geraldine Fitzgerald plays the role of a social worker who tries to befriend him and meets with the same cold shoulder. I have seen this actress in other movies but was never so impressed with her, as in this movie. Towards the end, Steiger turns to her for company and understanding, as he deals with the thugs he allows to use his shop for their own nefarious deeds in exchange for money.

A young Puerto Rican assistant tries to learn the trade from his boss. Steiger takes the time to coach him and seems to get some satisfaction from this relationship. Only much later does he realize how much the assistant cared for him. The customers are mild, gentle people trying to eke out whatever they can get from this hard, bitter man.

The film-making conveys great realism. We see Steiger walk through Times Square with the marquee for Leslie Caron in the L-Shaped Room, one of the movies of the time. We hear the rumble of the elevated train as it makes its way through the neighborhood. The character actors in supporting roles are excellent and add to the overall impact of this drama.

This movie is not about the Holocaust as such, but the viewer can see the impact of the horrors on one man and how it affected his life and those around him. The emotional trauma did not allow him to respond to the acts of kindness that he received. Finally, he had to deal with one heroic deed that was completely unexpected. How he carried on, we cannot know but we can see that his world did not completely reject him, although he tried to reject it. We can understand that he is a victim of a great atrocity.

This movie was directed by the recently-deceased Sidney Lumet, who even Martin Scorsese said was the quintessential New York director. This movie takes a universal theme and gives it a great backdrop. This is one of the finest, realist films I have ever seen. A highly personal encounter with a great tragedy.

"Share the dignity"

[Steffi_P · 4/10 · 22 June 2010]

The 1960s were many things – liberated, innovative, revolutionary, hip, bold, racy… but they were seldom sensitive, much less mature. And yet, being a time of greater honesty of expression, they were also a period in which humanity could perhaps begin to deal frankly with the most harrowing events of the century. But was the new generation of filmmakers up to the job? In some ways, yes they were. I am using the term filmmakers in its broadest sense, meaning everyone who contributes to the making of a motion picture. Lead actor Rod Steiger delivers a performance of incredible weight. It could be thought of as easy, portraying Sol Nazerman's emotional flatness, but in fact what Steiger is doing is portraying suppressed emotions, and he does so with exceptional control. Even when his character is at his most blank, Steiger is still presenting him as feeling on some level. This is testament to the commitment and realism of the Strasberg generation. But much as I admire Steiger, I would have preferred to see a man who actually petitioned hard for the role but never got it – Groucho Marx. At 74 Marx may have been a little old (although Steiger is theoretically too young), but I think he would have brought a certain level of feeling to the part, drawing from his life experience and the fact that comedians often have a contradictory knack for poignant dignity. This is something that a thorough professional like Steiger could not have achieved.

The source novel by Edward Lewis Wallant appears to be an occasionally intelligent, respectful and even moving exploration of the effects of colossal emotional trauma. However it distractingly deals too much with the politics of the New York underbelly, and if there is some attempt to parallel the horrors of the holocaust with the deprivation of Harlem, this is an insulting piece of reductionism. From here on it is one poor judgment after another. The direction of Sidney Lumet, typically inventive but still a little unsteady at this point, veers off the rails completely here, with some unpleasantly bizarre and showy techniques. For example, when Brock Peters shows off his stolen-goods lawnmower, we can tell he is an intimidating character and that this is a confrontational moment – so why labour the point by putting the camera on the floor? Artsy self-indulgence is bad enough at the best of times, but it is monumentally inappropriate for a picture like this.

And this is not all. The rambling Quincy Jones score relates not at all to the tone of the material (you couldn't even really say it is the sound of Harlem), and is surely only there because all independent avant-garde productions of the sixties "had" to have a free jazz score. And then there are the supporting roles – Jaime Sanchez's hammy Hispanic act would be fine in, say, West Side Story, but it's not for a serious picture. It's all such a shame because bits of The Pawnbroker are quite startlingly deep. There are certain things however that if done at all need to be done just right. I do not doubt that The Pawnbroker was all conceived with best of intentions, but those 60s hipsters were simply not equipped for the task.

Undressed Memory

[tedg · 22 November 2006]

I recently saw again a couple Lumet projects that I admired, so turned to this.

I think there is something to be said for artists who invent and then convince everyone afterward that what they have just experienced is the way the world is put together.

Some filmmakers do this consistently. Or they do it once, and then just live in the world they've created. Others are amazingly clever at some point, and equally banal at others. Polanski comes to mind.

When this was new, it was groundbreaking, truly an achievement. It worked.

Lumet's approach is actor-centric, not something I particularly value. But it is perfect for an exploration of a man: world growing from an individual. Lumet also likes to use space, but he doesn't know the containment properties of space, only the dividers, so we have the shop will all sorts of walls and fences. The lover's apartment as well.

What was new was this was the first movie — mainstream US movie — to use nudity. Its underwhelming today thank heaven, but rather shocking in its day, especially because the woman is black, and a seller of sex.

In the project, it triggers the most extended flashback sequence, one that involved our hero's deepest disaster. Overlapping flashbacks had been used, most famously in "Manchurian Candidate," which resembles this in some ways. But it hadn't been so fragmented, so apparently integrated into the fabric of the man. We see a desperate whore; he sees his humiliated wife. We see street thugs beating up a drunk; he sees the holocaust.

This cinematic device is now so common as to not be remarkable. Sex (in the form of exposed breasts) and Nazis both had more cinematic power then than now.

Is it greater art if we digest it, even if the work itself becomes ordinary in the process? Seeing this will do to you what happens with the character we see. It will undress your memory, your cinematic memory. If you saw this when you were both young, it will give you a flashback, you living both now and then.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Sweaty and Grimy, But Trailblazing

[evanston_dad · 9/10 · 9 August 2016]

Oooph, this movie hurts.

Film buffs can find evidence of schizophrenia in any movie decade, but perhaps none more so than in the 1950s and 1960s. It is nearly inconceivable to me that "The Pawnbroker" came out in the year that "The Sound of Music" won the Best Picture Academy Award. Don't get me wrong, I very much like "The Sound of Music" too, but it almost seems like it was made in a different century compared to this film.

Rod Steiger was justly nominated for and wrongly lost the Academy Award for his performance in "The Pawnbroker," as a concentration camp survivor who has lost all faith in humanity and sees people as no more or less valuable than the possessions they come to him to pawn. The film was directed by Sidney Lumet, and it creates the same sweaty, grimy atmosphere that Lumet would occasionally revisit (like in his 1975 film "Dog Day Afternoon") and that Martin Scorsese made a career of throughout the 1970s. It's a bleak film, one that uses the horrors of the Holocaust to shape its main character's psyche without giving him or the audience any real hope for his future. It's a film that suggests that the Holocaust broke something fundamental in human nature that will never be repaired. It's a message at odds with so many films that try to find closure or hope or at the very least a lesson to be learned from such a dark chapter of history, and it makes "The Pawnbroker" feel years ahead of its time.

The film is also trailblazing in its acknowledgement of blacks and homosexuals at a time when the former were the subject of mostly preachy white guilt movies that starred Sidney Poitier and the latter were not to be found in films pretty much anywhere. In "The Pawnbroker," both exist without commentary; they're just part of the world Rod Steiger's character lives in, as disenfranchised from the rest of humanity in their own way as he is. It's rather remarkable that the film includes so many black and gay characters without the film being ABOUT black and gay characters. The casual inclusion of them is a greater statement for the time than a movie about them would have been.

This is by no means a pleasant film to watch, but it is an awfully good one, and one that may very well leave you shaken.

Grade: A

This Isn't Pawn Stars

[view_and_review · 7/10 · 16 December 2019]

Forget about what you've seen on Pawn Stars because it will not prepare you for this movie.

In this very unglamorous movie a Jewish Nazi Germany survivor becomes a pawnbroker in New York. He is an emotionless man. He was so traumatized by the torture and terror Nazis put him through that he shut down his emotions completely. He has made himself as cold, mechanical, and robotic as he possibly can be.

With each interaction he has you hope he drops his impenetrable shell that he's shrouded himself in. No one is spared from his frigid behavior, not even his own family. You don't hate him for it, you just pity and sympathize with him.

"I have escaped from the emotions. I am safe within myself."

[ackstasis · 9/10 · 25 April 2008]

1964 was an incredible year for Sidney Lumet. Not only did he release 'Fail-Safe (1964),' one of the most gripping and haunting thrillers of the Cold War era, but he also directed Rod Steiger in 'The Pawnbroker (1964),' a gritty and powerful drama centred around an emotionless Holocaust survivor. Especially after watching the highly-theatrical '12 Angry Men (1957),' this film proves especially surprising, as, aesthetically, it represents a completely new era of Hollywood film-making. Predating the gritty, inner-city realism of 'Midnight Cowboy (1969)' and 'The French Connection (1971)' by half a decade, 'The Pawnbroker' sits at the crest of an American New Wave. Boris Kaufman's kinetic black-and-white cinematography is fresh and invigorating, presenting the squalid streets of Harlem in all their bleak and sinister glory.

The Holocaust was still tentative subject matter during the early 1960s, and very few films had dealt directly with the persecution and extermination of the Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany. Likewise, while many pictures had followed the attempts of returned war veterans to assimilate back into normal society, rarely had anybody attempted to explore Holocaust survivors in a similar manner. Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger) arrived in the United States a broken man, having lost his family in the concentration camps. The heartbreaking experience has left Sol with a cold resentment towards both himself and society, and, with a stubborn conviction that will ultimately hurt those close to him, he has unreservedly distanced himself from all emotion.

Rather than offering Sol relief, the decadence and corruption of modern New York only fuels his pessimism towards life. Having bitterly accepted the centuries-old stereotype that he is "a usurer, a man with secret resources, a witch, a pawnbroker, a sheenie, a mockery and a kike," Sol manages a small pawnshop, systematically robbing decrepit and grotesque individuals of their hope and livelihood with all the compassion of the Nazis who murdered his family. The shop itself is merely a front for the illegal underground dealings of Rodriguez (Brock Peters, displaying an exceedingly commanding presence); it's probably with a deliberate irony that it is an African American, delegated in the past to the bottom rung of society's ladder, who holds considerable authority over Steiger's tired, beaten Jew.

Jaime Sánchez gives another of the film's excellent performances, playing Jesus Ortiz, a Latino youth who has decided to shun crime in favour of eventually owning an honest business. However, Sol callously rejects Jesus' attempts at redemption, crushing his energetic spirit and inevitably turning him back to a life of crime. Geraldine Fitzgerald is also very good as Marilyn Birchfield, a lonely widow who tries, without success, to form a friendship with Sol, not knowing that he has consciously barred himself from all meaningful human relationships. In his distressing attempts to end the pain of suffering, Sol has become a prisoner within himself; at the film's end, he pierces himself in the hand, a final masochistic act of desperation, just so he call feel… something, anything.

'The Pawnbroker' has a wonderful music soundtrack, which was performed by Quincy Jones. The upbeat and energetic jazz tunes are almost mocking in way in which they clash with the subject material, so completely unsuited to such a sombre story, and yet somehow more honest than a more traditional music composition could ever have been. It is almost as though the hustle-and-bustle of Manhattan, completely ignorant and indifferent to the troubles of one old man on a single street corner, has effectively swallowed up Sol and his painful memories. It's a telling metaphor for a society that too-often neglects the darkest chapter in recent human history.

Steiger makes the movie

[johno-21 · 7/10 · 2 March 2006]

Director Sydney Lumet has made some of my favorite movies and really had an especially good 20 year run from 12 Angry Men to Dog Day Afternoon including Fail Safe, Serpico, Network and The Pawnbroker. Rod Steiger's performance makes this movie. He's supported by Geraldine Fitzgerald but the rest of the cast is largely unknowns and forgettable. It does have a gritty film noir look to it but that is largely because this is a relatively low budget film. This film is slow depends too much on flashback sequences which give it a choppy disorganized look and interrupts the flow of Steiger's performance. The music score by Quincy Jones along with the design to this film gives it more of a late 1950's look and feel than the mid 1960's. I've always liked Rod Steiger so I like him here and I have seen this several times on TV. This is not a bad movie by any means but it's not a great one either. I would give it a 7.0 on a scale of 10.

Exceptional Cast and Direction - Highly Recommended

[TheJonesBones · 8/10 · 18 June 2020]

First, I will say that the plot of this film is existential and unremarkable - BUT this facet of the production only serves to highlight its many strengths, which include more than one noteworthy performance by both established veteran and up-and-coming new players. In fact, this is why I'm writing a rare review - this black-and-white film altered my well-being and general understanding of the world, if only for a moment. I watch films like this again and again and again, each time seeing/hearing something new in it.

Rod Steiger (Sol) out-does himself by playing a subtle, understated part that absolutely SEETHES. Brock Peters (Rodriquez) plays Brock Peters - what a remarkable presence! Geraldine Fitzgerald (Marilyn) and Juano Hernandez (Mr. Smith) claw at my heart with their unshared message of unrelenting and pitiless loneliness. Jaime Sánchez (Jesus) plays the better half of his later role in "The Wild Bunch", but both are killers. Thelma Oliver (along with Linda Geiser) is stunningly bold and beautiful - she performs a scene in this film that literally changed the film industry forever. Marketa Kimbrell and Baruch Lumet (Tessie and Mendel) alternately bleed repressed angst and scarcely constrained loathing. Raymond St. Jacques (Tangee), Reni Santoni (Junkie), Warren Finnerty (Savarese), Ed Morehouse (Oratory Award Guy - incredibly, his ONLY role, ever)... all will make you believe - I leave it to the reader to figure out what that belief might be or become.

Watch this movie. You might regret it, but you will never forget it.

Worth the watch, but not the best

[markfinelli · 7/10 · 14 November 2020]

This movie is disturbing but shows how it can be for people who have experienced such trauma. The pain the man went through almost makes you feel bad for him but after, the way he treats people is terrible

Sol Nazerman was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, though being a survivor sounds good, it may not always be. He lost his family in the time of the war and also lost his meaning in life. He only cared about money. He is now a pawnbroker who really only cares about money. He treats almost everyone around him poorly which almost makes you not like him, but because of the flashbacks that he has of his time in the concentration camps, you can kind of see why he may be the way he is. It is a crazy ending that absolutely shocked me.

I would recommend this movie to anyone, especially people who are into history and the time of the war. This movie does have some great camera angles and I would say it was shot very well. Definitely worth a watch.