# The Pawnbroker
**The Pawnbroker** is a 1964 American black-and-white drama film directed by [Sidney Lumet](https://www.edgepedia.org/sidney-lumet), starring [Rod Steiger](https://www.edgepedia.org/rod-steiger) as Sol Nazerman, a Holocaust survivor who operates a pawnshop in [East Harlem](https://www.edgepedia.org/east-harlem), New York City. Adapted by Morton Fine and David Friedkin from Edward Lewis Wallant's 1961 novel, it was shot in New York in 1963, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in July 1964, and opened in the United States on April 20, 1965.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) The Film Society of Lincoln Center describes it as the first American film to address the Holocaust from the perspective of a survivor.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-pawnbroker/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / release | Sidney Lumet; Berlin premiere July 2, 1964; US opening April 20, 1965[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059575/releaseinfo/) |
| Source | Novel *The Pawnbroker* by Edward Lewis Wallant (New York, 1961); screenplay by Morton Fine and David Friedkin[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) |
| Lead performance | Rod Steiger as Sol Nazerman; Silver Bear for Best Actor at Berlin 1964; Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, 1966[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059575/awards/) |
| Key crew | Cinematographer Boris Kaufman, editor Ralph Rosenblum, production designer Richard Sylbert, music by Quincy Jones[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) • [5](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/the-pawnbroker) |
| Censorship landmark | The MPAA withheld the Production Code seal; the appeals board granted an exemption six to three as a "special and unique case" in March 1965[6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/how-pawnbroker-changed-film-censorship) |
| Preservation | Selected for the National Film Registry in 2008[7](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/) |
| Running time | About 114 to 116 minutes, depending on the print[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) • [8](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-pawn-broker-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0yntazmzk) |
## Spoilers
### Story and cast
Sol Nazerman, formerly a university professor, operates a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem. With the rise of Hitler he and his family were sent to a concentration camp, where he saw his two children die and his wife raped by Nazi officers; numbed by these horrors, he considers himself conditioned against any emotion.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) He condemns his clientele and ridicules his idealistic young Puerto Rican assistant, Jesus Ortiz (Jaime Sánchez), while engaging in turf warfare with the local pimp Rodriguez ([Brock Peters](https://www.edgepedia.org/brock-peters)), who uses the shop as a front.[5](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/the-pawnbroker) • [2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-pawnbroker/) [Geraldine Fitzgerald](https://www.edgepedia.org/geraldine-fitzgerald) plays Marilyn Birchfield, and Thelma Oliver plays Ortiz's girlfriend.[5](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/the-pawnbroker) When Ortiz risks his life for Sol, he learns what the synopsis calls the truth about hope and humanity.[5](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/the-pawnbroker)
Wallant, who had spent time in a relative's pawnshop watching how it operated, came to know a death camp survivor during his studies at New York's Pratt Institute.[9](https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/the-pawnbroker-holocaust-memory-and-film-january-2008/)
## Production history
Development began early: items in the January 16, 1962 *Daily Variety* and January 17, 1962 *New York Times* announced that former [United Artists](https://www.edgepedia.org/united-artists) promotions executive Roger Lewis had begun developing his first independent picture in association with Philip Langner.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) The BFI reports that MGM once weighed moving the story to London's Soho and having [James Mason](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-mason) star; [Groucho Marx](https://www.edgepedia.org/groucho-marx) wanted the part ultimately played by Steiger, and though Ely Landau, working independently, saved the struggling production, directors Stanley Kubrick, Karel Reisz, and Franco Zeffirelli each declined to take it on.[6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/how-pawnbroker-changed-film-censorship) Lumet stepped in, marking a reunion with Landau after *Long Day's Journey Into Night* (1962).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER)
**Shooting.** After rehearsal in New York City, principal photography began on October 7, 1963. Interiors were completed at the Fox Movietone Studios in Hell's Kitchen, and the eight-week schedule also included scenes filmed in East Harlem, Jericho on [Long Island](https://www.edgepedia.org/long-island), Lincoln Center, and [Connecticut](https://www.edgepedia.org/connecticut). Lewis and Lumet had agreed to low salaries in exchange for a percentage of the profits.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) Annette Insdorf, adjunct professor at Columbia University and author of *Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust*, notes that the film is one of the rare Hollywood films to take on the Holocaust and its legacy with both thematic and formal vigor while being shot entirely in New York.[10](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pawnbroker.pdf)
## Style and the traumatic flashback
The film's reputation rests substantially on its editing. Lumet and editor Ralph Rosenblum use montage as a complex visual analog for mental processes: although the story takes place in the present, it is punctuated by flash cuts that surface momentarily into the protagonist's thoughts, searing the present with his concentration camp past.[10](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pawnbroker.pdf) The film opens with a fragment whose meaning is revealed only midway through the story: a dreamlike slow-motion pastoral scene of a young couple, their children, and grandparents that ends abruptly.[10](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pawnbroker.pdf)
The memories begin as brief, near-subliminal flashes and grow more frequent, intense, and prolonged as the film progresses, culminating in an extended recollection inside a train en route to a death camp.[11](https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/444024/Lawrence_Luchoomun_thesis_combined.pdf) Scholars of trauma representation treat the film as a key text: Jeremy Maron, writing in *Holocaust Studies*, argues that the film's treatment of trauma functions through its treatment of time, combining graphic matches and flashbacks to emphasize the collapse between Nazerman's Holocaust past and his present in Harlem.[12](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17504902.2009.11087245) Insdorf places the film in a cinema of flashbacks that alternates a present marked by indifference to the Holocaust with the past, a method she considers more truthful to subjective memory than objective reconstruction.[13](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/indelible-shadows/meaningful-montage/A70CC9F180B9A25536B229A6EDABFD70)
## Censorship and release
The film became a landmark case in American film censorship. Prior to domestic release it sparked controversy with the Motion Picture Association of America for failing to receive a Code Seal from Code Authority Geoffrey Shurlock; the scenes at issue included footage of a bare breast and a woman being stripped naked upon entering a concentration camp.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER) Aware that the Catholic Legion of Decency had already condemned the film, Shurlock withheld PCA clearance both for the nudity and for a bedroom scene involving Jesus and Mabel that was branded "unacceptably sex suggestive and lustful".[6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/how-pawnbroker-changed-film-censorship)
Bolstered by Steiger's best actor win at the 1964 Berlin Film Festival, Landau prepared to release the picture without the seal through Allied Artists. Oscar-winning director [Joseph L. Mankiewicz](https://www.edgepedia.org/joseph-l-mankiewicz), then on the appeals committee, urged Lumet to argue his case before the MPAA. By six to three, the board granted an exemption, decreeing the feature "a special and unique case" that should not set a precedent. Yet by approving the US release in March 1965, the PCA had allowed its defenses to be breached; in 1968 the Code was replaced by a ratings system, a change the BFI credits with helping usher in the [New Hollywood](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-hollywood) era.[6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/how-pawnbroker-changed-film-censorship)
The film was also contested on other grounds: Jewish groups criticized it as self-hating and antisemitic, and civil rights activists condemned perceived racial stereotyping. Lumet refuted accusations that he had turned East Harlem into a latter-day concentration camp, telling the journal *Films and Filming* in 1964 that "Harlem in the film is meant to have enormous life about it with all its sadness".[6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/how-pawnbroker-changed-film-censorship) • [14](https://offscreen.com/view/the-representation-of-trauma-and-memory-in-the-pawnbroker-sidney-lumet-1965)
## Reception and legacy
The film appeared barely 20 years after the liberation of the death camps, at a moment when American moviegoers were being fed largely by big-budget [Technicolor](https://www.edgepedia.org/technicolor) productions.[9](https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/the-pawnbroker-holocaust-memory-and-film-january-2008/) Bosley Crowther of *The New York Times* called it remarkable and praised Steiger's mounting intensity, from listless ennui to a point where he seemed bound to burst.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-pawnbroker/) *TIME* called it the grimmest movie of the year while noting that the best of it burns into the mind.[15](https://time.com/archive/6627506/cinema-a-jew-in-harlem/) [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael), writing in *McCall's*, judged Juano Hernandez's performance the single most moving one she saw in 1965.[16](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_pawnbroker)
**Awards.** Steiger won the Silver Berlin Bear for Best Actor at the 1964 festival, where the film also took an honorable mention FIPRESCI Prize for Lumet; he was nominated for the 1966 [Academy Award for Best Actor](https://www.edgepedia.org/academy-award-for-best-actor) and won the 1967 BAFTA for Best Foreign Actor, and the film won a 1966 Bodil for Best Non-European Film.[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059575/awards/) On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 88% Tomatometer from 24 critics and an 87% audience score from more than 1,000 ratings; its Metacritic score is 69 based on 11 critic reviews.[16](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_pawnbroker) • [17](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-pawnbroker/)
In 2008 the Library of Congress selected the film for the National Film Registry, the annual list of American films deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and recommended for preservation.[7](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/) Insdorf's registry essay argues that the film's cruelty and indifference are rendered comprehensible only through the flashbacks showing Nazerman's earlier brutalization, and that his inability to take action in the camp extends into the present.[10](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pawnbroker.pdf) Later scholarship places the film as a crucial juncture in the history of American Holocaust representation, marking a crossroads between film and memoir.[18](https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/document/116835)
## References
1. [The Pawnbroker (1965), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23313-THE-PAWNBROKER)
2. [The Pawnbroker, Film Society of Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-pawnbroker/)
3. [The Pawnbroker (1964) Release Info, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059575/releaseinfo/)
4. [The Pawnbroker (1964) Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059575/awards/)
5. [The Pawnbroker, Paramount Pictures](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/the-pawnbroker)
6. [David Parkinson, "How The Pawnbroker changed film censorship", BFI, August 27, 2021](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/how-pawnbroker-changed-film-censorship)
7. [Complete National Film Registry Listing, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/)
8. [The Pawn Broker, British Board of Film Classification](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-pawn-broker-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0yntazmzk)
9. ["The Pawnbroker: Holocaust, Memory, and Film", Perspectives on History, American Historical Association, January 2008](https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/the-pawnbroker-holocaust-memory-and-film-january-2008/)
10. [Annette Insdorf, "The Pawnbroker", National Film Registry essay, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pawnbroker.pdf)
11. [Lawrence Luchoomun, thesis, University of Roehampton](https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/444024/Lawrence_Luchoomun_thesis_combined.pdf)
12. [Jeremy Maron, "Bringing the Psychological Past into the Physical Present", Holocaust Studies Vol. 15, No. 3](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17504902.2009.11087245)
13. [Annette Insdorf, "Meaningful Montage", Indelible Shadows, Cambridge University Press](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/indelible-shadows/meaningful-montage/A70CC9F180B9A25536B229A6EDABFD70)
14. ["The Representation of Trauma and Memory in The Pawnbroker", Offscreen](https://offscreen.com/view/the-representation-of-trauma-and-memory-in-the-pawnbroker-sidney-lumet-1965)
15. ["Cinema: A Jew in Harlem", TIME, April 23, 1965](https://time.com/archive/6627506/cinema-a-jew-in-harlem/)
16. [The Pawnbroker, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_pawnbroker)
17. [The Pawnbroker Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-pawnbroker/)
18. [Schindler's List as an Archetype of Hollywood Filmmaking, Lancaster University](https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/document/116835)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1960s › Released 1960 to 1965*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license