The Pawnbroker (1964)
He's Sol Nazerman and this is his pawn shop.
Curmudgeonly New York pawnbroker Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger) is stuck in a metaphorical cage. He’s imprisoned by memories of his time in a concentration camp, and he flashes back to these horrors regularly. His experiences have stripped him of his faith in everything but money: he declares, “next to the speed of light, […] second only to that, I rank money!” Oh, and, while working in his pawnshop, he’s also in a literal cage.
The movie isn’t about Sol processing his trauma, though. Instead, it’s about how Sol won’t open himself up to anyone and how he believes those around him are (in his words) “scum, rejects.”
Sol teaches his employee Jesus (Jaime Sánchez) that only money matters, and with that lesson in mind, Jesus attempts to rob the pawnshop with some local heavies. When one pulls a gun and threatens to kill Sol, Jesus tries to grab it from him, getting shot in the process. The film ends with Sol’s face contorted in a silent scream, thinking about how he’s let down everyone around him.
Rating: best I can do is 5/10.
Cast and Crew
Director Sidney Lumet1 got his start in TV, where he learned to work fast. We’ve talked about some of those 1950s shows that aired original plays2; Lumet directed hundreds of episodes of them. His jump to movies was even adapted from a play done on “Studio One”: 12 Angry Men (1957).
We’ll see a lot of Lumet’s work in this column. Perhaps this is because he was an “actor’s director,” leading his stars to Oscar glory. Alternatively, maybe it’s just a numbers game (he directed over 40 films) and “actor’s director” is just what you call nice guys whose style is sometimes damned with the faint praise of “efficient and economical.” We’ll find out.
With The Pawnbroker and The Mark, Rod Steiger has been in two of the more anonymous movies we’ve watched in this series.3 That might be a knock on Steiger’s projects, but it’s not a knock on him: he’s a supreme talent, and his mostly-understated performance carries this film. (Here’s his sizzle reel scene where he responds to a question about why “you people” are so good at business.) We haven’t seen him in anything worth watching since On the Waterfront, but hopefully his next appearance—for which he wins an Oscar—will change that.
The Trivia
The score of The Pawnbroker was composed by Quincy Jones, the first of his almost 40 film scores. You might know Jones as the super-producer of Michael Jackson’s biggest albums, but before he donned the producer hat he was a jazz pianist, trumpeter, and arranger for guys like Lionel Hampton, Harold Arlen, and Jimmy & Tommy Dorsey. Today we’re using Jones as a jumping-off point to discuss jazz pianists of the second half of the 20th century.
Thelonious Monk4 (1917 – 1982) was known as the “the high priest of bebop”; he helped pioneer the genre (along with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie). Monk said “the piano ain’t got no wrong notes”—but that might have just been in defense of his flat-fingered style, where each of his fingers might hit multiple notes at once. For this, he was also called “the elephant on the keyboard.” Some of his best-known tracks: “‘Round Midnight,” “Straight No Chaser,” and “Blue Monk.”
Monk strikes me as the guy whose stuff sounds the most canonically “jazz.” Like, if someone were to ask you to “throw on some jazz” without specifying further, you’d put on Monk. It’s like ur-jazz: just jazz, that’s it.
Dave Brubeck (1920 – 2005) is also pretty jazzy, but (for trivia at least) his work boils down to two huge hits in weird time signatures: “Take Five” (which is in 5/4) and “Blue Rondo à la Turk”5 (in 9/8). Both are on “Time Out” (1959) by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.6
Alright, Brubeck and Monk are jazz people, but how about a jazz Muppet? Check out Dr. Teeth, the keyboardist and bandleader7 from the Muppets house band, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
No, we will not argue about whether Dr. Teeth is jazz. We might as well argue if the similarly difficult-to-classify Dr. John (1941 – 2019), on whom Dr. Teeth was based, is jazz.8 Music taxonomy is boring. Anyway, sometimes you might be asked about the members of the Electric Mayhem, so: Janice (guitar), Sgt. Floyd Pepper (bass), Zoot (sax), Lips (trumpet), and Animal (drums). Here’s a nice introduction to the band.
Okay, back to people:
Canadian ivory tickler Oscar Peterson (1925 – 2007): called the “Maharaja of the keyboard” by Duke Ellington and “the man with four hands” by Louis Armstrong. There are your Pavlovs: Canadian, virtuoso.
Herbie Hancock (born 1940). He founded one of the key jazz fusion bands, the Headhunters, and did the 1983 banger “Rockit.” He did soundtracks, including ones for Blow-Up (1966), Death Wish (1974), and Round Midnight (1986)9. He won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2008 for “River: The Joni Letters.”10
Chick Corea (1941 – 2021): Chick was on the keys for Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew,”11 but the song of his that I’m aware of is “Spain” (that was with his band Return to Forever, another core jazz fusion act). He won 27 Grammys, which is a huge number of Grammys.12
But remember: the world is big and jazz is especially big. This post is the kiddie pool; the deeper end has guys like McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Cecil Taylor, Horace Silver, Ahmad Jamal, Joe Zawinul of the Weather Report, and Sun Ra. Maybe you’ll never be asked about them, but the world doesn’t end at the edge of what makes a good bar trivia question.
Odds and Ends
The Pawnbroker was Morgan Freeman’s film debut…Brock Peters played the villainous Rodriguez; we last saw him as Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird…a character mentions Herbert Spencer, who coined the term “survival of the fittest”…co-star Geraldine Fitzgerald isn’t Geraldine Page…a touchstone is used to assay precious metal alloys…some butterflies: monarch (sure), mourning cloak (okay), great spangled fritillary (what??)…the song “Soul Bossa Nova” is heard during a sex scene; this is a song by Quincy Jones and you might know it better from its use in the Austin Powers movies.
One thing for which The Pawnbroker was famous: nudity. It was the first U.S. film to show a nude woman from the waist up and be granted an MPAA seal of approval. This was supposed to be a one-time-thing, but it led to additional challenges against—and eventually, the end of—the Hays Code.
CORRECTION: In our 1964 wrap-up, we mentioned The Night of the Iguana, calling it “a Tennessee Williams adaptation not nominated for any acting Oscars.” Unfortunately, pesky facts undermine our pithiness: Grayson Hall was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Yogesh gives us the much-appreciated correction again—and as penance, we watched his 2nd-favorite13 movie: Fail Safe (1964). We didn’t mention it above, but Fail Safe is also a Sidney Lumet film, and since its plot is so close to Dr. Strangelove’s, it was a great opportunity to see the contrasting styles of two important filmmakers. As we say: there’s always more to learn.
Pronounced “loo-MET.”
Y’know, “Playhouse 90,” “Kraft Television Theatre,” “Studio One,” those shows.
Well, “Jeopardy!” actually asked for The Pawnbroker on 5/13/24 (“Holocaust survivor Sol runs a shop whose customers are often desperate in this novel made into a Rod Steiger movie”) but it was a triple stumper.
Not a stage name!
Not related to Mozart’s “Rondo Alla Turca.” Instead, it uses a rhythm common to Turkish musicians—hence “à la Turk.”
You could also know “Unsquare Dance” (which, continuing the weird time signatures thing, is in 7/4). If you’re unclear what the deal with time signatures is, this neat video explains it nicely using music from Nintendo.
Bandleaders, man.
Dr. John had the hit “Right Place Wrong Time.”
Round Midnight was named for the Monk song mentioned above. As its lead was nominated for Best Actor, we’ll be watching it.
That album was all covers of Joni Mitchell songs. It beat out Kanye West’s “Graduation” and Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” reminding us how wacky the Grammys can be.
But don’t mix him up with Bill Evans (1929 – 1980), a different pianist who played on Davis’ “Kind of Blue.” Also, uh-oh, did we mention Hancock was in Davis’ “Second Great Quintet”? I guess a lot of dudes played with Miles.
That leaves him tied for fourth with Alison Krauss. Those two are one Grammy behind—oh hey, it’s Quincy Jones! In 2nd is the conductor Sir Georg Solti, and in 1st is ya girl Beyoncé.
We’re not, like, gonna try and get more stuff wrong, but we are excited to find out what his #1 flick is.