The Pawnbroker (1964)

The Pawnbroker
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Morton S. Fine and David Friedkin from a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant
1964/USA
Landau Company/The Pawnbroker Company
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Sol Nazerman: I do not believe in God, or art, or science, or newspapers, or politics, or philosophy.

Jesus Ortiz: Then, Mr. Teacher, ain’t there nothing you do believe in?

Sol Nazerman: Money.[/box]

Rod Steiger gives a masterful performance as a Holocaust survivor who has almost succeeded in obliterating his emotions.

Sol Nazerman has emigrated to the United States after surviving confinement in a concentration camp during WWII.  He lives with some extended family members but apparently lost his entire immediate family in the Holocaust.  Nazerman makes ends meet in a skid row pawnshop where he strikes a hard bargain.  Many of his down and out clientele are lost souls who are looking for a sympathetic word as much as a loan but Nazerman is all business.  He also rejects the friendship offered by a kindly spinster (Geraldine Fitzgerald).

Nazerman acts as though he has more in common with the gangsters his shop fronts for. He also hands out hard-nosed business advice to his eager assistant Jesus.  None of these stratagems really works and the pawnbroker must eventually come to terms with his humanity.

Steiger is magnificent in this.  He avoids all his latent hamminess and turns in a subdued, moving performance.  This is the real reason to see the film.  I thought more could have been done with the story line to give it depth.

Rod Steiger was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar.

The Pawnbroker was the firstU.S. film to show a nude woman from the waist up and be granted a Production Code Seal, representing another step in the gradual dismantling of the Code.

Trailer – spoilers

Hidden themesong