Rod Steiger as Sol Nazerman The Pawnbroker publicity photo 1965 Canvas Print

"The Pawnbroker is a 1964 (Berlin Film Festival entry), 1965 (U.S. theatrical release) drama film, directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sanchez and Morgan Freeman in his feature film debut. It was adapted by Morton S. Fine and David Friedkin from the novel of the same name by Edward Lewis Wallant.

The film was the first American movie to deal with the Jewish holocaust from the viewpoint of a survivor. It earned international acclaim for Steiger, launching his career as an A-list actor The film was among the first American movies to feature nudity during the Production Code, and was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. Although it was publicly announced to be a special exception, the controversy proved to be first of similar major challenges to the Code that ultimately led to its abandonment.

With the rise of Hitler, Sol Nazerman (Steiger), a German-Jewish university professor, w...

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...