THE PAWNBROKER is an anxious drama about a man who lives, without emotion and compassion, in his bitter past and a brutal present. It is based on the novel of the same name by Edward Lewis Wallant. One man, who has survived the Holocaust, wanders between two realities, and constantly pushes people around him.Sol Nazerman, a German-Jewish university professor, works as a pawnbroker in East Harlem, while living in an anonymous Long Island apartment. He has survived imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, while his wife and family did not. He works hard and cynically watches the people around him. The devastating experience and unrelenting memories inhibit Sol from emotional involvement with life. His pawn shop is the perfect cover for a local racketeer...The topics related to alienation, loneliness and inability to adjust give a disturbing tone to this melodrama. The main protagonist is a deeply traumatized, intellectually exhausted, and emotionally damaged person. Every event in his life, wakes a painful and disturbing memories. He is completely lost in his inner anxious struggle between two worlds. However, his pictures of the past is covered by a burden of the present. He is finally awake and able to accept a guilt and shame for his daily actions towards other people. The point is reflected in the abuse, the horrors of concentration camps and the life of the middle class around New York.The atmosphere is eerie and sexually exhausted, characterization is very good, and the sound emphasizes a kind of disorder in society.Rod Steiger as Sol Nazerman is a man who is a prisoner of his own past, bitterness and cynicism. Mr. Steiger has showed the great versatility of a troubled and broken character. His support are Geraldine Fitzgerald (Marilyn Birchfield) as a social worker who, in a clumsy and spontaneous way, tries to attract an alienated gentleman in her life, Jaime Sánchez (Jesus Ortiz) as Sol's assistant and a young man on a verge of criminality and Brock Peters (Rodriguez) as a believable and brutal crime boss.This is a strong and convincing work, no matter what the intensity of the story depends on Steiger's excellent performance and some nudity.

A Jewish pawnbroker (Rod Steiger), victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.What goes on at the corner of Park Avenue and East 116th Street? Your friendly neighborhood pawn shop doing business, or a hub for criminal elements? Ivan Butler says the film presents "the beastliness and squalor of life in a big city", with even the life-saving ambulance featuring a "battered chassis". Butler's praise knows no bounds when he says, "Rod Steiger's performance ranks among the half dozen greatest in the cinema, and the film is filled with unforgettable moments." There is an interesting social commentary here, though what exactly it says may be unclear. A Jewish man, who has survived the Holocaust, now provides a service for the poor, who he calls "scum". Is it right for him to look down on people when he was once looked down on? And is his "service" helping the people or only further forcing them into poverty? In some sense, he has become the new oppressor, controlling the lives of his neighbors by deciding how much the important pieces of their lives are worth, and collecting their rings much as the Nazis had once collected the rings of his fellow prisoners.While probably not intentional, one could make the case that this film is an allegory for the state of Israel. The members there, once oppressed, now keep their neighbors down. That strikes me as being far more political than this story was reaching for, though.Interestingly, this was Morgan Freeman's first movie (as an uncredited man on the street). And strangely, you will notice that the music first heard as background on the radio in the scene between Ortiz and his girlfriend was later revived by Quincy Jones to become the title theme music to the Austin Powers films.

The Pawnbroker is directed by Sidney Lumet, has a screenplay by William Friedkin and Morton S. Fine and stars Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters and Jamie Sanchez.The Pawnbroker's emotional impact cries out loudly demanding to be felt,seen and heard.It features Lumet's usual brand of blistering and gripping dialogue,as well as a breathtaking central performance by Rod Steiger.Released in 1964 this is one of the first mainstream films to deal with the Holocaust.It doesn't dwell on the physical horrors of the camps,instead it's a hard hitting look at the emotional horror and devastation inflicted upon the survivors of those terrible crimes.In particular it focuses on how such horrors can cause the individual sufferer to dispense with emotion and block out the memories of the event in question. This of course can in turn cause even greater damage.New York in the 60's finds Concentration Camp survivor Sol Nazerman(Rod Steiger)running a successful pawnshop business ably assisted by young hotshot Jesus Ortiz(Jaime Sanchez).Sol has no emotion to invest in any of his customers(many of whom have no one else to talk to and just come to his shop for any kind of human emotional connection)or friends.It is coming up to the 25th anniversary of his wife's death and he is besieged by terrible memories of that time as if they were happening again fresh and new.Due to the horrors he saw which includes the death of his entire family he has blocked out the memories as best he can and has no faith left in the human race.This blinds him to the goodness and hope that happens daily around him.It's up to youth worker Marilyn Birchfield(Geraldine Fitzgerald)to try and awaken his buried emotions and help him reconnect with the world.She strikes up a tender friendship with him and partly succeeds in making him take another look at his situation.However it really takes the tragic death of someone close to him to fully make him see what he has wasted and lost all these years.That is Sol's real tragedy he has squandered the precious gift of life and joy.However it makes the viewer think what would we do in his situation?Is coming back to normal life really that easy after experiencing such pain?no of course it's not, that just makes us empathise with his plight even more. One of the most disturbing,clever and memorable moments in the film is when Sol is on a subway train and a memory of being on a crowded transportation train heading to a camp comes to him and past and present blend into one big moment of horror and terror and he suffers a panic attack.Rod gives one of the best performances of his career and through his truthful performance we share Sol's pain,terror and panic and like Marilyn desperately want to help him try and function easier in life.There's fine support from Geraldine Fitzgerald as the kindhearted Marilyn, Brock Peters is excellent as a local gangster and Thelma Oliver makes an strong impression as Ortiz's girlfriend/prostitute.Emotionally devastating and shocking,The Pawnbroker is an underrated film dealing with themes of prejudice,sadness and horror which in some parts of the world still happens today(will some of us never learn from the horrors of World War Two?).Impressive,meaningful and deeply affecting The Pawnbroker is one to watch.

A concentration camp survivor lives a bitter and isolated existence as a Harlem pawnbroker. This is an extremely drab and depressing movie, which would be OK if it was rewarding in any way, but it's not. Lumet, who would follow up this disappointing effort with the brilliant "Fail Safe," is annoyingly indulgent and pretentious here. Everything about this movie screams that it's an important movie about a serious subject. Yes, the subject is serious, but the movie is a joke, with a pathetic, melodramatic finale. Steiger, never a subtle actor, is so hammy that it's painful to watch. In fact, with the exception of Fitzgerald, the acting is uniformly bad. The loud, obnoxious score adds to the misery.