On P List of Movie Reviews
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The Pawnbroker (1964)
Rate:
3
Viewed:
11/16
11/16:
Forget the fact that Sidney Lumet directed The Pawnbroker or the fact that Rod Steiger was nominated for Best
Actor Oscar.
The Pawnbroker, which is the first American movie to deal with the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a survivor, is
one of the most boring, dated movies I've seen in years. Hardly much happens.
Every time a shot of the concentration camp is shown, the moment is so short and murky that I'm unable to make heads
or tails of it. Now, we know the Jewish were rounded up and sent away for either work or death. Pretty much, Rod
Steiger pretends to have suffered the horrors of concentration camp, but really, he's just an actor. The whole thing
isn't working out for me.
Jaime Sánchez, in his motion picture debut who will be memorable in
The Wild Bunch, doesn't help, either, as he turns in a hammy performance
that's suitable for the theater. I must have missed him somewhere as it's the first film for Morgan Freeman.
The blood used is chocolate syrup as it's often taken advantage of in black-and-white films. Alfred Hitchcock
applied it a great deal during the famous shower scene in Psycho. On the
other hand, The Pawnbroker is the earliest black-and-white Hollywood picture I can recall that features a
black woman in the nude.
All in all, Schindler's List supersedes The Pawnbroker.