This is the story of Sol Nazerman. He survived the Holocaust but lost his wife and two children, and his will to live. The movie is unrelenting in its study of the effects that this man's past has on him some twenty years after the war. A viewer should be prepared for an intense experience--as appropriate, the movie is filmed in stark black and white and there is no comic relief.
Surprisingly this is one of the first mainstream U.S. movies to deal with issues surrounding the Holocaust, I guess such horrific events take a long time to digest and the immediate response is most naturally to try to forget. I remember "Judgement at Nuremberg" (1961) as being the fist time I saw graphic images from the Holoaust, like piles of naked bodies being bulldozed into a pit. But this film does not dwell on the Holocaust per se, but rather focuses on the aftereffects on one man.
In the opening scene we see the young Sol and his family happily enjoying a picnic in the countryside just before the Nazis show up. The film is inter-cut with brief flashbacks of images from Sol's memory sparked by current happenings, like Jews being stripped of their rings after Sol has dealt with a customer in his pawnshop who wants to pawn a ring, or memories of Jews transported like cattle in trains when he is on the subway. And Sol has not wound up in the most uplifting of work environments, managing a run-down pawn shop in Harlem where every customer comes in with a tale of woe. Sol has suffered so much pain that his response is to shut his emotions down and to try to cut himself off from people. As he says, "I have escaped from the emotions. I am safe within myself." It was a good touch for him to be most frequently filmed behind the wire cages of his shop, symbolizing how walled off he had become. People do try to make contact with him, but he rudely rejects them. He has become such a bitter cynic that it was somewhat puzzling to me why anyone would want to be around him at all.
As the movie progresses we start to see small cracks in Sol's self-imposed isolation. He shows up at the apartment of a woman social worker who has tried to befriend him and is anguished when he realizes that his shop is but a front for a gay crime boss (Brock Peters in a fine performance) who is running all manner of nefarious businesses. But it is the dramatic scene at the end when Sol understands that he cannot really cut himself off from society. An unintended consequence of his behavior results in a tragedy and he quite literally winds up with blood on his hands.
To come away from this movie without being totally depressed you have to hope that Sol, while being permanently scarred by his past, is on his way to reengaging with the world.
This is one of Steiger's best performances and, if there was any previous doubt, it proves that he was one of our best actors. He was in his late 30s when this was filmed and was able, through appearance and body movement, to create a totally believable persona of a broken down middle-aged man. The supporting cast is good as well, but it is Stieger who carries the film. I am in the camp that thinks the assertive jazz score was inappropriate and was overly intrusive (maybe director Lumet had been unduly impressed with "Breathless"). The screenplay is hardly much more than a script for a stage play and it could have been performed effectively with no music whatsoever.
One message to take away is to try to be understanding the next time you meet a sour old man and realize that there might be some good reasons why he is what he is. Maybe, as Sol says, he has seen that "there is a world different than yours, much different than the people in it are of a another species."
Surprisingly this is one of the first mainstream U.S. movies to deal with issues surrounding the Holocaust, I guess such horrific events take a long time to digest and the immediate response is most naturally to try to forget. I remember "Judgement at Nuremberg" (1961) as being the fist time I saw graphic images from the Holoaust, like piles of naked bodies being bulldozed into a pit. But this film does not dwell on the Holocaust per se, but rather focuses on the aftereffects on one man.
In the opening scene we see the young Sol and his family happily enjoying a picnic in the countryside just before the Nazis show up. The film is inter-cut with brief flashbacks of images from Sol's memory sparked by current happenings, like Jews being stripped of their rings after Sol has dealt with a customer in his pawnshop who wants to pawn a ring, or memories of Jews transported like cattle in trains when he is on the subway. And Sol has not wound up in the most uplifting of work environments, managing a run-down pawn shop in Harlem where every customer comes in with a tale of woe. Sol has suffered so much pain that his response is to shut his emotions down and to try to cut himself off from people. As he says, "I have escaped from the emotions. I am safe within myself." It was a good touch for him to be most frequently filmed behind the wire cages of his shop, symbolizing how walled off he had become. People do try to make contact with him, but he rudely rejects them. He has become such a bitter cynic that it was somewhat puzzling to me why anyone would want to be around him at all.
As the movie progresses we start to see small cracks in Sol's self-imposed isolation. He shows up at the apartment of a woman social worker who has tried to befriend him and is anguished when he realizes that his shop is but a front for a gay crime boss (Brock Peters in a fine performance) who is running all manner of nefarious businesses. But it is the dramatic scene at the end when Sol understands that he cannot really cut himself off from society. An unintended consequence of his behavior results in a tragedy and he quite literally winds up with blood on his hands.
To come away from this movie without being totally depressed you have to hope that Sol, while being permanently scarred by his past, is on his way to reengaging with the world.
This is one of Steiger's best performances and, if there was any previous doubt, it proves that he was one of our best actors. He was in his late 30s when this was filmed and was able, through appearance and body movement, to create a totally believable persona of a broken down middle-aged man. The supporting cast is good as well, but it is Stieger who carries the film. I am in the camp that thinks the assertive jazz score was inappropriate and was overly intrusive (maybe director Lumet had been unduly impressed with "Breathless"). The screenplay is hardly much more than a script for a stage play and it could have been performed effectively with no music whatsoever.
One message to take away is to try to be understanding the next time you meet a sour old man and realize that there might be some good reasons why he is what he is. Maybe, as Sol says, he has seen that "there is a world different than yours, much different than the people in it are of a another species."