BBBB
(out of 5)
A Holocaust survivor (Rod Steiger), the only member of his family to escape from the camps alive, now lives in 1960s New York and owns a pawn shop. The many difficulties of facing the rough life of downtown New York City are constantly exacerbated by his inability to escape his memories. Only the friendship of a kind woman he meets in a park (Geraldine Fitzgerald) seems to help, but even then it’s difficult for him to reach out to her. This excellent drama, one of the first to truly address the survivor guilt of those who managed to outlive the horrors of the Third Reich, is kept entirely together by the fascinating, subtle performance by Steiger, who was probably never better.
Landau Company, The Pawnbroker Company
USA, 1964
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Screenplay by Morton S. Fine, David Friedkin, based on the novel by Edward Lewis Wallant
Cinematography by Boris Kaufman
Produced by Philip Langner, Roger H. Lewis
Music by Quincy Jones
Production Design by Richard Sylbert
Costume Design by Anna Hill Johnstone
Film Editing by Ralph Rosenblum
