THE PAWNBROKER 15

FILM EXTRAS 1964 OUT NOW DVD, BD EXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes, Short, Booklet

Making its UK disc debut, Sidney Lumet’s clenched drama stars Rod Steiger as a Holocaust survivor running a pawn shop in Harlem. Emotionally shut down, it is only now, 20 years on, that his repressed memories leak out to overwhelm him - radically portrayed by early subliminal cuts that widen out into full flashbacks. Steiger, who ludicrously lost the Oscar to Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou, underplays with fearsome intensity, and the vérité location work is equally forceful. Watch out for Morgan Freeman’s (nonspeaking) debut. Jamie Graham