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DVD The Pawnbroker
Based on a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant, this gritty story follows Sol (Rod Steiger in a breakout performance), a lonely camp survivor who has dealt with the destruction of his family by suppressing all emotion and cleaving to the philosophy that nothing matters except money. (His bedridden and dying friend Mendel describes him, to his face, as "the walking dead.") Sol cannot accept the friendship of his assistant, Ortiz (Jaime Sanchez), or of an equally lonely widow (Geraldine Fitzgerald). As the 25th anniversary of his wife's murder approaches, he starts to fall apart, and it becomes clear that what he really wants is to die. The film was considered shocking when first released, both because of its rawness and because of brief nudity. Time has made some of the dramatic touches seem melodramatic--especially the corny "blood on my hands!" final scene. But Steiger's performance is still remarkable, and, even after MTV, the sudden-flashback editing is a forceful technique. A high point of Sidney Lumet's career. Black and white, with lots of atmospheric trumpets by Quincy Jones. --Richard Farr
i have just finished watching this film and am still speechless.sydney lumet does it again,making a great work of art and one of the most important films of all-time.the always great, rod steiger,puts in perhaps the greatest performance of his career.it's the story of a holocaust survivor,sol(rod steiger) who,25 years earlier,has lost his wife and children to the nazis and now owns a pawnshop in harlem.he has never gotten over the tragedies that he has experienced and this leaves him hollow inside and all he believes in is money.he has a young co-worker,jesus,working for him and lives with a friend and his wifes sister.but to him they mean nothing.as usual,lumets direction is superb and the use of flashbacks are very effective.i noticed on this site that morgan freeman played an extra on the street in this film.i'll have to watch it again to see if i can recognize him,interesting. this film must have been shocking for it's time,not only dealing with the subject of a holocaust survivor but of the nudity as well.this is such a well done film and am sorry that i've waited this long to see it.the movie is disturbing yes,but so important that it should be seen by all those who love cinema and the open-minded alike.i don't know what else i can say but see this work of art.belongs on the top 100 list.
One of the most shattering, powerful and honest films made in America in the Sixties.
The picture which spearheaded the innovative wave of American cinema at mid-decade was "The Pawnbroker" (1964), the highly controversial film which gave Rod Steiger his first impressive shot at a character lead: Sol Nazerman, a middle aged Jewish American who runs a dilapidated pawnshop in Harlem. Nazerman's background, as sketched in for us, is relatively unique: the man survived the concentration camps in Europe twenty years earlier, after the rest of his family perished. But Nazerman's personality, in the present, is clearly an extension, and exaggeration, of a state that beginning to infect the American public. Nazerman survives in the Sixties by eschewing all relationships, loyalties, and commitments, either to other people or to causes. The world around him is heightened in its ugliness--slums and suffering everywhere--and Nazerman makes no attempt do anything about it, since he has gradually convinced himself that things cannot be altered for the better. He exercises a passionless affair with the widow of his one-time best friend; he berates the spontaneous, flippant young Puerto Rican, Jesus (Jaime Sanchez), who works as his assistant; he spurns the attempts of a well-meaning welfare worker (Geraldine Fitzgerald) to strike up a friendship. Nazerman operates as an island unto himself, until a series of shocking accidents and outrages force him to extend himself back into the world at large.
Though Nazerman's story is a far cry from the experiences of most people, it still served as an allegory for current events. Non-involvement emerged as a major social wave of the Sixties, in response to the ever growing rate of crime, and became the subject of movie makers who attacked this latest brand of amorality with a heated anger. "The Pawnbroker" was a case in point, though the film was immediately attacked from a number of corners. It was accused of being anti-Semetic, offering an image of a Jew who believes in nothing but money; of being anti-Negro, for presenting blacks in villainous roles; and of being pornographic, for featuring exposed breasts for the first time in a modern American commercial film.
These attacks were, of course, all unfair. Though Nazerman happens to be a Jew, he is in no way presented as representing Jewish characters in general, but rather an unpleasant modern trend toward alienation that cuts across all cultural barriers. For the character of the black Harlem gangster, the filmmakers hoped to cast any of a number of big name black stars. Brock Peters finally agreed to do the role, with a clear understanding that portraying nothing but clean-cut, highly intelligent, almost infallible black characters--as Sidney Poitier was doing in such films as "The Slender Thread", "A Patch of Blue", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" and "To Sir, With Love"--only offered an unrealistic image of the Negro in America, and thus was essentially counter-productive. And the exposed breasts--occurring in a scene, in which a desperate young Negro hooker offers herself to Nazerman, reminding the man of his own wife--could not be considered pornographic, since the scene is anything but erotic or arousing. We are moved to feel anguish for the woman and for Nazerman, who is once again learning to feel pain, sorrow, and humiliation.
Though in fact based on a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant, "The Pawnbroker" often looks like a dramatic work transferred to the screen without its theatrical origins ever being left completely behind. Even the flashbacks, a purely cinematic device, to Nazerman's youth in Europe are overly obvious, and set into the film in predictable, contrived ways. Despite this, the adult handling of such volatile and controversial subject matter qualifies "The Pawnbroker" as a significant movie milestone. [filmfactsman]
Decicated to the memories of Geraldine Fitzgerald (1913-2005) and Brock Peters (1927-2005).
Steiger, Lumet & Q
I saw this film in it's initial release. Lumet just received an Special Oscar, and this film should be at the top of his list of achievements. Steiger was never better, and Quincy Jones first film score was so very appropriate. The only Oscar recognition was for Rod Steiger's amazing performance, so complicated and profound...and so very complete. Missing of recognition was Jaime Sanchez' powerful supporting role, and that of the great Geraldine Fitzgerald, still magnificent after a long hiatus. Also, Brock Peters, after playing the sweet Tom Robinson in "To Kill a Mockingbird", shows great range as the bad guy.Steiger lost the Oscar to Lee Marvin in "Cat Ballou". Even though Marvin played dual roles, Jane Fonda was the center of that film. Steiger was in every frame of "The Pawnbroker". Makes you wonder about the credibility of the Academy, huh? And then there's Lumet, and those very complicated flashbacks of the Holocaust. Quite powerful. This is the first film score by the great Quincy Jones. It is so appropriate. (He was nominated the following year for "In Cold Blood"). Some say Steiger won the Oscar in '67 ("In the Heat of the Night") because he lost for this one. I think not. This was a period in Steiger's career when he was in touch with his material. Lumet, Jones and the late Steiger should be proud that this display of greatness is available for all to see.
Director Stanley Kramer's socially conscious 1961 film tackles the subject of the war crime trials arising out of World War II in an earnest and straightforward fashion, exploring the consciousness of two nations as they struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of the Holocaust. Spencer Tracy plays the American judge selected to head the tribunal that will try the suspected war criminals. As he sets about his task, he must confront the raw emotion felt by the German people, and his own notions of good and evil, right and wrong. Regarded as a classic, this stark rendering of one of the most pivotal events in the 20th century features a stellar cast including Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, a young William Shatner, and Maximillian Schell, who won an Oscar for his... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Spencer Tracy - Burt Lancaster - Richard Widmark Director(s): Stanley Kramer DVD Release Date: Released the 07 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Both riveting murder mystery and classic fish-out-of-water yarn, Norman Jewison's Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night represents Hollywood at its wiliest, cloaking exposé in the most entertaining trappings. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger prove the decade's most formidable antagonists. Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs, an arrogant homicide detective waylaid in Sparta, Mississippi; Steiger, in his bravura Oscar-winning turn, is Bill Gillespie, the town's hardheaded, bigoted sheriff who first arrests Tibbs for murder and then begs for his expertise. As the clues and suspects mount, Gillespie and his deputies develop begrudging respect for the black officer. The first-rate supporting cast includes Lee Grant as the victim's angry widow, Warren Oates as a voyeuristic deputy, William... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sidney Poitier - Rod Steiger - Warren Oates - Lee Grant Director(s): Norman Jewison DVD Release Date: Released the 09 January 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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John le Carre's classic spy yarn gets a suitably brisk, unromanticized telling in this quintessential Cold War movie. A British agent (Richard Burton) sets up an elaborate cover story for being lured into defecting to the Communists, but he hardly needs to manufacture his disgust and cynicism over spying. The grim business of point-counterpoint espionage has rarely been depicted with less glamour; Burton's great climactic speech on the subject is the definitive take on sinking to the level of the enemy. Claire Bloom is an offbeat love interest, and a bearded Oskar Werner is an East German investigator on Burton's case (the pecking order in the Communist spy hierarchy is a source of black humor). Director Martin Ritt extends his unvarnished approach to the movie's stripped-down look, which... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Burton - Oskar Werner Director(s): Martin Ritt DVD Release Date: Released the 13 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Ranking No. 21 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films, this 1940 classic is a bit dated in its noble sentimentality, but it remains a luminous example of Hollywood classicism from the peerless director of mythic Americana, John Ford. Adapted by Nunnally Johnson from John Steinbeck's classic novel, the film tells a simple story about Oklahoma farmers leaving the depression-era dustbowl for the promised land of California, but it's the story's emotional resonance and theme of human perseverance that makes the movie so richly and timelessly rewarding. It's all about the humble Joad family's cross-country trek to escape the economic devastation of their ruined farmland, beginning when Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns from a four-year prison term to discover... More Info about this DVD Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 06 April 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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