Movie Review – "The Pawnbroker"

The Pawnbroker (1964) – Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger) is a Jew who survived the Holocaust and now runs a pawn shop in East Harlem.  He carries with him the emotional scars of watching his children killed and his wife raped in the concentration camp.  His solution is to seal off his emotions and reject any connection with the people around him.  Nazerman eventually must face the results of his decisions.

A chilling look at the emotional death of a man.  Nazerman believes he has found a way to survive, instead he discovers the cost of that decision.  His rejection of the people around him helps him to hold the memories of the past at bay.   The reality is that he has thrown in with a local crime boss (Brock Peters) who is using the pawn shop as a money laundering front for the profits of his criminal enterprises, including prostitution.  It is the discovery of that last fact that shatters his illusions and cause him to lose the people around him once again.

“The Pawnbroker” is the movie that took Rod Steiger from just another name and put him on the top of Hollywood’s list of leading actors.  It earned Steiger an Oscar nomination.  Both he and director Sidney Lumet picked an array of nominations and awards around the world for the movie.   A solid supporting cast (Peters, Geraldine Fitzgerald and even Morgan Freeman in his very first, non-speaking, role) plus a sound track by Quincy Jones make a powerful package.  Shot entirely in black and white the final effect is claustrophobic and stunning.  There is a level of gritty realism that you seldom see.

Steiger is almost unrecognizable in this movie.  With his thinning hair barely covering his head and equally wispy mustache he looks much more like Anthony Hopkins than the bald headed bull of a man I usually think of when when I think of him.  (We get a glimpse of that Steiger in the concentration camp flashbacks)  His slow, inexorable destruction of Nazerman’s protective shell is a brilliant perfomance.

This is the first major motion picture to deal with the Holocaust from the point of view of a survivor.  It’s also the first movie to recieve approval under the old Production Code that showed a woman’s bare breasts (actually two women).  This movie would mark the beginning of the end of the Production Code.

Not a movie when you are looking for a fun way to spend an afternoon.  This is one to keep until you’re ready for something special, something challenging, something profoundly human.

Rating – ***** Highly Recommended