Directed by Sidney Lumet Vol. 1

Like so many others, I’ve long been a fan of director Sidney Lumet but based on only a small sample of his extensive filmography. There are the ones most people have seen: Dog Day Afternoon, Network, 12 Angry Men. Then there are the slightly more obscure films that constitute the next layer for those who like to dig deeper: The Verdict, Running On Empty, Fail Safe. But Lumet’s huge, sprawling filmography has so many more films that are rarely given the same attention and for too long I have foolishly ignored these lesser-discussed works based on the fact that I once saw Deathtrap and Family Business and thought they were rubbish. We can all be thankful for Imprint then, for providing us with the first volume of an in-depth look at some of Lumet’s hidden gems.

THE PAWNBROKER

Director: Sidney Lumet
Screenplay: Morton S. Fine, David Friedkin
Based on the novel by: Edward Lewis Wallant
Producers: Philip Langner, Roger Lewis, Ely Landau
Starring: Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sánchez
Year: 1964
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: 15
Duration: 116 mins

When I saw that the first film in this boxset was The Pawnbroker, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I had seen the film many years ago and remembered it being powerful. On the other hand, I also remembered it being one of the most gruellingly depressing experiences I’d ever had with a film. A rewatch, carefully scheduled for when I felt in the right headspace to tackle such material, confirmed both my suspicions. As one of the earliest American films to tackle the subject of the Holocaust and the very first to do so from the viewpoint of a survivor, The Pawnbroker was always going to be a tough watch. But films dealing with the Holocaust are not always such deliberately unpalatable experiences as this one. The Pawnbroker wants to try and make us feel the numbing misery of a shattered life right alongside its main character, a German-Jewish survivor who had to watch his wife being raped and his children murdered. For those who never endured the horrors of the concentration camps themselves, of course, this is an impossibility, but The Pawnbroker wants at least to trap us in the experience of vicarious misery. There is a scene in which the protagonist, Sol Nazerman, has his head rammed through a closed window and held in place so that he has to watch his wife being assaulted. The Pawnbroker feels like it is trying to do the same to a willingly oblivious audience who would rather not face the atrocities of the past.

In its uncompromising approach, The Pawnbroker managed to get scenes of nudity and references to homosexuality past the Production Code, a special exception that inevitably proved to be an early step towards greater cinematic freedom. It was unusually astute of the censors to recognise the necessity of The Pawnbroker not pulling its punches. While many of the atrocities are implied rather than shown in full, the film forsakes the narrative tradition of traumatic memories being triggered by innocuous reminders. The horrendous events of the past come back to Sol as he witnesses comparable acts of brutality and sexual humiliation in the East Harlem slum in which he operates. His chances of escaping the spectres of the past are rendered even slimmer when there are constant reminders of the worst of human nature that led to them in the first place. One of the reasons The Pawnbroker is so difficult to watch is that it is not merely the story of a man struggling with the aftermath of abuse. Sol is continually subjected to indignities and mistreatment twenty-five years after and thousands of miles away from the time and place of his original alienation.

The casting of Rod Steiger, an actor famous for going big with his performances, was something that initially made Lumet nervous but a meeting with Steiger confirmed that he was on the same page about the restraint with which Sol should be portrayed. One of The Pawnbroker’s boldest conceits is its portrayal of Sol as unlikeable. He has not only closed himself off to human interaction, an entirely understandable response to the torments to which he has been subjected, but he has begun exploiting those around him for financial gain, the only thing he seems to truly value anymore. He offers his desperate customers far less than their pawned items are worth and coldly ignores their pleas or attempts at forging a connection. Steiger is frustratingly impenetrable for much of the runtime, with his occasional outbursts being as brief and visceral as the almost subliminal flashbacks of the camps. It’s an indelible depiction of how exposure to evil can completely alter a person’s entire character and it’s a prison from which The Pawnbroker offers no escape. Not for this grimly realistic film the glimmers of hope on which we cinemagoers rely to feel better about the world. This film doesn’t want to send us away feeling better. It wants us to feel terrible and not forget that feeling the next time we risk letting our prejudices get the better of us.

In hammering its ambitious concept into something that audiences can stomach to some extent, The Pawnbroker makes some smart choices and some questionable ones. Although his Oscar-nominated turn is powerful, some may question whether the non-Jewish Steiger was the best choice for this role. It’s tempting to say the film would never be cast this way today, but with a current debate over “Jewface” raging in relation to the Oscar-nominated films Maestro and Golda (both nominated for their controversial makeup) that is not necessarily true. The Pawnbroker does at least have the crucial Jewish perspective from its writers and director, although the film was criticised for perpetuating stereotypes of a money-grubbing Jewish pawnbroker. However, there is a great deal about identity in the film’s screenplay that plays on these stereotypes deliberately. Another smart move is the incorporation of a jazz soundtrack by Quincy Jones, which both offsets and enhances the intensity of The Pawnbroker, imbuing it with a rhythm that purposefully clashes with the insularity of its protagonist. Without Jones’s energising soundtrack, the film would risk becoming too exhaustingly cold to cope with.

The Pawnbroker, for me, remains an easy film to admire and a tough one to love. It largely achieves the aims of its difficult, unforgiving tone but as a viewer I felt beaten down by it after ten minutes and emotionally drained by the time I reached the slightly too melodramatic climax, in which some rather unnecessary religious symbolism overwhelms the grounded narrative. It’s easy to see why The Pawnbroker is still regarded as such an important film but it’s also easy to see why it is rarely screened. I’m better for having seen it but I will probably never watch it again.

THE GROUP

Director: Sidney Lumet
Screenplay: Sidney Buchman
Based on the novel by: Mary McCarthy
Producers: Sidney Buchman
Starring: Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, Elizabeth Hartman, Shirley Knight, Jessica Walter
Year: 1966
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: 12
Duration: 150 mins

Based on the controversial 1963 novel by Mary McCarthy, The Group was a fairly big deal at the time of release but its lukewarm reception has led to it becoming one of Lumet’s more forgotten films. It’s focus on then-taboo topics like abortion, lesbianism, contraception and mental health seemed to mark out The Group as a progressive work but its two and a half hour runtime, large ensemble cast and earnest tone simultaneously align it with an Old Hollywood aesthetic that was in the process of being usurped by the leaner, tighter and more exciting innovations of New Hollywood. As a lover of both Old Hollywood’s expansive classicism and the invigorating innovations of New Hollywood, I enjoyed The Group to a certain extent but it felt like it could do with a healthier dose of the latter in order to prevent its lengthy runtime from dragging in the back half.

Lumet’s insistence on populating his film with lesser-known actors and complete newcomers results in an eight-woman-ensemble with no major stars. Even in retrospect, the most recognisable performers, Candice Bergen and Jessica Walter, never became A-list megastars. Two of the other cast members, Joan Hackett and Elizabeth Hartman, tragically died in their 40s, robbing them of the chance to build on their burgeoning fame. Lumet’s gambit paid off artistically if not commercially, eliminating as it does the presence of a big name who would inevitably tip the focus in their direction, but the actors are often working in very different registers, resulting in a fascinating gumbo with a shifting tone that both sustains the interest and shatters the credibility. Shirley Knight, already a double Oscar-nominee by this stage, gives the best and most stabilising performance as the pragmatic nurse Polly but her shining turn in this relatively low-key role does make me wonder if she might’ve been better suited to the more emotionally erratic part of Kay, an abused wife whose fractured mental health leads to increasing overstatement in Joanna Pettet’s odd performance. Jessica Walter is often accused of the same for her self-consciously big turn as the self-absorbed Libby, although the part arguably calls for this kind of exaggerated preening. The problem here is more in the writing, as Libby’s insufferability makes her long-time place in the group difficult to believe. Walter’s performance is frequently comic, which makes the scene in which she is beaten when she momentarily exposes her vulnerability feel salaciously unpleasant rather than incisive, especially since it is denied further examination by her subsequent marginalisation. Joan Hackett’s performance as Dottie, whose deflowering by a monstrous male chauvinist was the subject of much of the novel’s controversy, is also an exaggeration but she brings an otherworldly edge to it that makes it mesmerising rather than grating. Elizabeth Hartman, meanwhile, is heartbreakingly real as the fragile Prissy, disappearing into the role in a way that somehow deaccentuates her character and makes her stand out at the same time. Candace Bergen does the reverse, with a showily enigmatic introduction that establishes her as the group’s de facto leader and then necessitates her extended removal from the narrative so that her former classmates lives can fall apart in her absence.

The Group was adapted for the screen by Sidney Buchman, a great screenwriter of classics such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Here Comes Mr. Jordan, who seems oddly mismatched with the material. Nowadays the folly of entrusting to a man the adaptation of a story so heavily focused on women would be all too obvious but in the mid-60s it was likely done without a second thought. At the very least, Buchman retains the female perspective, reportedly by ripping the majority of the dialogue from the pages of McCarthy’s novel. By all accounts, the novel has a more interesting satirical tone and Buchman was unable to compensate for the film’s lack of access to the characters’ inner thoughts. The result is often described as “Soapy”, although I do wonder if this term would be so readily applied to a male-centric equivalent. Lumet’s fast-paced movement between scenes and characters arguably anticipates the same approach in daytime Soaps but the material, though sometimes comparably melodramatic, is also considerably more cerebral and socially relevant. If the latter quality dates the film, it does so in a fascinating way which allows us to glimpse the sexual mores of the 30s as perceived from the standpoint of the 60s, simultaneously providing an interesting window into two separate bygone ages.

Though it is always a cause for celebration to find films, especially of this vintage, that focus so strongly on female protagonists, The Group falls well short of its lofty aspirations, with its washed-out look, drab, claustrophobic sets and a moment of terrible back projection trapping a potentially cinematic epic in the clothes of cheap televisual schlock. The diversity of tones and performance styles holds the attention but The Group definitely sags as often as it fascinates, ultimately dragging itself over the 150 minute mark with a sense of spent defeat.

THE DEADLY AFFAIR

Director: Sidney Lumet
Screenplay: Paul Dehn
Based on the novel by: John le Carré
Producers: Sidney Lumet
Starring: James Mason, Maximilian Schell, Simone Signoret, Harriet Andersson, Harry Andrews
Year: 1966
Country: UK
BBFC Certification: 12
Duration: 107 mins

The Deadly Affair is based on the debut novel by John le Carré, which introduced his most famous creation George Smiley. Lumet’s film was unable to use that character name since the rights to it were then held by Paramount whose The Spy Who Came in from the Cold also featured the character in a supporting role. For The Deadly Affair it was changed to Charles Dobbs, a much blander name but one which allows James Mason’s very different take on the character to be handily dissociated from the stoicism of Alec Guinness’s later more famous turn as Smiley. Dobbs feels like a much more openly anguished character, his downtrodden demeanour giving way to momentarily cathartic outbursts that ultimately feel pitifully impotent. Without these changes Mason might’ve felt miscast but just as Dobbs becomes his own separate character, so The Deadly Affair feels liberated from the more soberly clinical style of other le Carré adaptations. Lumet’s film instead feels infused with a great deal of humour to balance its glum core.

For The Deadly Affair, cinematographer Freddie Young created an influential technique of exposing the film negative to small amounts of light to create a muted palette. The result is a gloriously chilly backdrop that feels uniquely British in its deglamourisation. It suits the film’s evocative London settings perfectly. The cast are similarly unexotic, with gloriously weatherbeaten legends like Harry Andrews and Roy Kinnear stealing scenes with their grittily comic characterisations. Simone Signoret is rendered similarly dour for a performance of great restraint as the wife of a recently deceased Foreign Office official, while counterpoints are provided by an alluringly rugged Maximilian Schell and the cameoing siblings Lynn and Corin Redgrave who send themselves up amusingly in the film’s most broadly comedic scene. It’s a shame that one of the central characters, Dobbs’ openly unfaithful wife Ann, is so badly miscast. Harriet Andersson, over twenty years Mason’s junior, seems completely lost in her attempts to get a handle on her enigmatic character and her love for Dobbs, the thing that keeps them together in the face of her need for other male company, is never once convincing. This strand of personal disharmony that plays out parallel to Dobbs’ investigation is one of the film’s most fascinating elements but Andersson’s unsuitability for her part renders it less effective than it might’ve been. Another downside of The Deadly Affair is Quincy Jones’s score. The Lumet/Jones collaboration worked brilliantly on The Pawnbroker but the strange, faltering Bossa nova oddity that Jones turns in here feels completely at odds with the film.

With a key role miscast and an intrusively mismatched score, you might expect me to rate The Deadly Affair lower than I have but I was surprised at how much I loved it. I often find these Espionage Thrillers a bit convoluted and hard to follow but The Deadly Affair is both satisfyingly twisty and refreshingly straightforward, allowing me to enjoy its various entertaining vignettes without the distraction of keeping one finger on the plot. With its rich vein of humour, its finely hewn downbeat atmosphere, its gallery of grubbily idiosyncratic characters and its satisfying combination of its character’s personal and professional lives, the film’s flaws became mere curiosities in a consistently enjoyable little gem.

CHILD’S PLAY

Director: Sidney Lumet
Screenplay: Leon Prochnik
Based on the play by: Robert Marasco
Producers: David Merrick
Starring: James Mason, Robert Preston, Beau Bridges, Kate Harrington
Year: 1972
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: 15
Duration: 100 mins

Child’s Play has never been one of Lumet’s most acclaimed films. Coming off the back of a couple of superficially similar school-based psychological Horror satires, If… and Unman, Wittering and Zigo, and based on the multiple-Tony-Award-winning Broadway play by Robert Marasco, the film centres on an unexplained wave of violence among the boys at a Catholic boarding school, with the suggestion of a supernatural demonic inspiration rumbling below the surface. Into this fray comes new P.E. teacher Paul Reis, a former pupil who was taught by both the popular and affable English teacher Joseph Dobbs and the despised Latin master Jerome Malley. Taken under Dobbs’ wing, Reis witnesses the growing rift between his mentor and the feared Malley, who insists that he is being victimised by Dobbs in an attempt to remove him from his position. How does this feud tie in with the brutal goings-on amongst the students?

The intriguing premise of Child’s Play is undermined by an approach that leaves too many of its secrets wide open to be guessed early on. And yet, there’s more to the film than its twists and those who felt disappointed by its fairly transparent plot would perhaps have benefited from looking at it from another angle. As a Mystery it’s pretty flat but as a human Drama it’s actually quite compelling, even if the Horror elements are folded in a little clunkily. But the muddy, low-budget look of the film actually lends it an effectively eerie air and Lumet had made a nice, unshowy job of the direction. Child’s Play’s trump card by far though is its performances. There is a nice collection of supporting turns from the likes of Ron Weyand, Charles White and David Rounds, and a young Beau Bridges is likeable as the new teacher. But it is the central duo of Robert Preston and James Mason who help the film establish itself as a small treat rather than a misfiring oddity. Preston, best known as the shyster Harold Hill in The Music Man, gives Dobbs an approachable gravitas that is instantly familiar from the sort of friendly but intimidatingly staunch teachers who have tried to engage with classes I’ve been part of myself. It’s a stellar turn but undoubtedly the film’s true star is James Mason, whose Malley proves to be one of the most memorable characters of his career. Hardline, caustic and jittery, Mason’s frazzled performance is exceptional and well worth seeing Child’s Play for alone.

It’s easy to see why many found Child’s Play a bit flimsy and its conclusion does feel a bit silly and leaves a few questions lingering in the mind. If you take it less literally though there is an interesting allegorical angle regarding the relationship between physical and mental violence and how we pass that on through our biases and beliefs. While it’s not up there with Lumet’s best work and perhaps not quite strong enough to describe as truly underrated, Child’s Play was a far more interesting film than I was initially expecting and Mason’s performance demands to be seen.

THE OFFENCE

Director: Sidney Lumet
Screenplay: John Hopkins
Based on the play by: John Hopkins
Producers: Denis O’Dell
Starring: Sean Connery, Trevor Howard, Ian Bannen, Vivien Merchant
Year: 1972
Country: UK
BBFC Certification: 15
Duration: 112 mins

The Offence remains comparatively buried in the lengthy filmography of Sidney Lumet. Arriving just before the more commercially successful Serpico, this smaller scale British film about law enforcement has a far less sympathetic character at its centre in Sean Connery’s brutal, unstable detective Johnson. In fact, it would also make an interesting, if overly-punishing, double-bill with The Pawnbroker as another film in which the protagonist’s devastating alienation has been exacerbated by trauma. In the case of The Pawnbroker, however, Sol Nazerman’s entire personality was altered by atrocities forced upon him. Johnson’s trauma is the result of vicarious abominations, born of a sympathy which he finds incompatible with his excessively macho self-image. The Pawnbroker implied that Sol was once an open, loving husband and father, whereas Johnson’s atrocious treatment of his wife suggests that his personality flaws have been magnified rather than created by the terrible things to which his chosen career has exposed him.

Adapted from his own stage play by Z Cars writer John Hopkins, The Offence’s source production impressed Connery and when he came to sign back on as James Bond for Diamonds are Forever, his return to the franchise was conditional on United Artists funding two of Connery’s own smaller projects. The uncompromising nature of The Offence speaks of Connery’s desire to branch out into more challenging territory and the character of Johnson gives him the opportunity to portray a complex bundle of monstrous contradictions. Connery is terrific, giving a performance that is consistently frightening to watch and depicts moving emotional vulnerability through the prism of a dangerously volatile character. In several moments, particularly when he repeatedly bangs his head against a table, Johnson seems like a forerunner for Boys from the Blackstuff’s Yosser Hughes, albeit devoid of the tragicomic childlike quality that Alan Bleasdale’s writing and Bernard Hill’s performance brought to that role. There are a couple of moments in which Connery’s enthusiasm for getting his teeth into a grittier part are too readily apparent and it was probably a blow when his co-star, the equally excellent Ian Bannen, was the only cast member to receive an awards nomination. The scenes between Connery and Bannen, including an extended climactic duologue, are the finest in the film and the two actors bring out the best in each other with their increasingly emotionally raw performances.

The Offence feels very much like a game of two halves, with a bleakly cinematic opening hour giving way to a series of duologues that clearly betray the film’s stage origins. As a fan of dialogue-heavy scripts I enjoyed both parts of The Offence, although the gloomy location work on the Bracknell estates and ominous wooded areas were so chillingly effective that it did take a while for me to adjust when the film moved exclusively to interior sets. Of the three two-hander sequences that make up the back end of the film, two worked brilliantly for me. Johnson’s confrontation with his wife, a heartbreakingly downtrodden Vivian Merchant, is compellingly cruel and fleshes out Connery’s character after an hour of enigmatic motivations. The final scene of Johnson’s unauthorised interrogation of a suspected child rapist is exceptional, capitalising fully on that combustive chemistry between Connery and Bannen. The film’s clever structure serves up this climax as a flashback, expanding on snippets we’ve already seen in order to fully enlighten us on what led to Johnson’s extreme deeds. The Offence also knows when to hold back. Its refusal to share every detail with the audience increases the moral ambiguity and begs the question of whether access to the withheld information would really have a bearing on our ethical assessment. That’s the humdinger of a dilemma that The Offence leaves its audience to ponder.

I was so thoroughly gripped by The Offence that there were moments I came close to thinking a full five star rating might be on the cards. But the one major flaw that held me back was the remaining duologue. Sandwiched between those mentioned above, another long scene of Johnson being interrogated by Trevor Howard’s Inspector Cartwright occurs. Always a reliable screen presence, Howard receives second billing for his comparatively brief turn as the inspector but the effectiveness of his performance is scuppered by the redundancy of the scene. While the other two duologues give us new information regarding Johnson’s state of mind and his life-altering split-second choices, the scenes between Connery and Howard have nowhere to go but round in circles. They reiterate the trauma to which we’ve already been amply exposed in the scenes with Merchant and the only way Lumet and his actors can find to distinguish the new scenes is to increase the melodrama, temporarily undermining the authenticity. A bridging scene is required between Johnson’s arrest and the flashback but it feels like a film adaptation might’ve been the right opportunity to cut this down considerably rather than extend the runtime based on a belated faithfulness to the original play’s three-act structure.

Despite its unfortunate lull so close to the closing stretch, I still think The Offence is a brilliant, deeply affecting film with several excellent performances. Its moral questions and highly ambiguous characters have resonated with me long after the closing credits and, unlike The Pawnbroker which I admired but will likely never watch again, The Offence is a harrowing film to which I’m still looking forward to returning in future.

SERPICO

Director: Sidney Lumet
Screenplay: Waldo Salt, Norman Wexler
Based on the book by: Peter Maas
Producers: Martin Bregman
Starring: Al Pacino, John Randolph, Jack Kehoe, Biff McGuire
Year: 1973
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: 15
Duration: 130 mins

By far the most famous film in this boxset, Serpico feels like a turning point for the prolific Lumet in which he found himself more in step with the New Hollywood filmmakers of the 70s. The presence of New Hollywood icon Al Pacino is obviously a factor but Serpico also has a gritty, loose energy that aligns it with other urban masterpieces of the era. Serpico had a troubled route to the screen and Lumet was a last minute hire when director John G. Avildsen was fired from the project. A screenplay by Waldo Salt had been revised by Norman Wexler at Avildsen’s demand and ultimately a combination of Salt’s dialogue and Wexler’s structure, supplemented by improvisation by the cast, was agreed upon by Lumet and Pacino. These setbacks had left the production with limited time and budget to work with and Lumet’s reputation as a strong director under pressure got him the gig. Though Lumet found the shoot physically and emotionally gruelling, the film he turned in betrays none of that strain. It is one of the most smoothly flowing, consistently entertaining films Lumet had made up to that point and he was rewarded with commercial and critical success.

Based on the real life story of New York City cop and whistleblower Frank Serpico, as documented in Peter Maas’s biography, Serpico begins with the gravely wounded titular character being rushed to hospital after a shooting. We then flash back to his first day on the force and through a series of vignettes we learn of Serpico’s rapid disillusionment with the widespread corruption at the heart of the NYPD. Although the film was dismissed as defamatory on release by members of the real police force, the fact that Serpico feels just as relevant in our current climate suggests that misplaced dedication to a systemically problematic institution was still the regularly chosen path over the required positive change that still feels discouragingly hard to bring about. Films like Serpico, which present the subject with a realistic disillusionment but not a defeated cynicism, are crucial in changing this and Pacino’s exceptional central turn gets at the heart of the level of mental strain these changes can place on those who get the ball rolling.

For all its infuriating details and grim trajectory, Serpico is a film with a nice vein of humour to balance it out. After the relentlessly bleak The Offence, it is refreshing to see a story which places greater importance on the small character beats of its protagonist. Pacino described the real Serpico, whom he met several times, as having “mischief in his eyes” and Pacino brings that quality to his portrayal. Amidst the battle against overwhelming, deep-rooted corruption, it makes the story even more effective that we know and like Serpico on a personal level. Details like the purchasing of his sheepdog, his love affairs with two women and his trendy bohemian 60s wardrobe all flesh out the man so that we feel more deeply for him and his fight against injustice. Pacino’s career was building up a head of steam at this point and Serpico came out between the first two Godfather films, with all three films bagging him Oscar nominations and his subsequent collaboration with Lumet, the sublime Dog Day Afternoon, doing the same. Watching this portion of his career, it’s hard to imagine the overly-intense Hoo-Hah reputation Pacino would gain later in his career. As a young man, Pacino is completely magnetic, intense when he needs to be but charismatic as hell at the same time. Though the baroque elegance of the Godfather films may be what he is best remembered for, his performance in Serpico is every bit as superb and perhaps even more compelling for its alluring edge of affability.

Serpico feels like the perfect place to end this first volume of Lumet films, a new chapter in the career of a filmmaker on the edge of major acclaim. Though every film here has something to recommend it, Serpico feels like a culmination of their strengths. But Imprint should be applauded for their dedication to releasing lesser-known and less widely available films. If Serpico is the cherry on top, the heart of this collection is found in films like The Group and Child’s Play, long buried pieces with much to tell us about a director who is too regularly judged on his scattered handful of masterpieces. I certainly felt that Directed by Sidney Lumet Vol. 1 gave me a much fuller picture of Lumet and it’s still only the tip of the iceberg. I can’t wait for volume 2.

Directed by Sidney Lumet Vol. 1 was released on limited edition Blu-ray by Imprint on 27 December 2023. The set’s most prominent extra is the feature length documentary One Step Further: Becoming Lumet, which details Lumet’s career from his early days in television up to the release of The Group. It is extremely thorough, covering even the TV projects that Lumet made between early films. It is essentially a slightly dry video essay but should fascinate those looking to delve further into Lumet’s career, although it does feature a factual error in its claim that Rod Steiger won an Academy Award for The Pawnbroker.

The full list of special features by disc are as follows:

* NEW Audio Commentary by writer/producer Phoef Sutton, writer/NPR commentator Mark Legan, and author/film historian C. Courtney Joyner (2023)
* NEW Cinema of the Pilpul: A Talmudic View of Early Holocaust Cinema – Video Essay by film historian / filmmaker Daniel Kremer (2023)
* NEW Safe Within Myself: Remembering Rod Steiger – Interview with the stepdaughter of Rod Steiger, Claudia Myhers Tschudin (2023)
* The Guardian Interview: Rod Steiger (1992)
* Theatrical Trailer

THE GROUP

* NEW Audio Commentary by film historian Howard Berger (2023)
* NEW Designing Sidney – Interview with production designer Philip Rosenberg (2023)

THE OFFENCE

* NEW Audio Commentary by film historians Lee Pfeiffer, Tony Latino & Paul Scrabo (2023)
* NEW Sidney Lumet: Childhood Elegy – Video Essay by film historian Howard Berger (2023)
* NEW Interview with second assistant director Michael Stevenson (2022)
* Interview with composer Harrison Birtwistle (2015)
* Interview with stage director Christopher Morahan (2015)
* Interview with assistant art director Chris Burke (2015)
* Interview with costume designer Evangeline Harrison (2015)
* Interview with sound mixer Simon Kaye (2016)
* Theatrical Trailer

ONE STEP FURTHER: BECOMING LUMET

* NEW A Perfectly Outrageous Cut: Editing Lumet – an all-new featurette with award winning editor Alan Heim discussing his working relationship with Sidney Lumet (2023)
* NEW His Favourite Protagonist: Designing Lumet – an all-new featurette with production designer Philip Rosenberg discussing his collaborations with Sidney Lumet (2023)
* NEW Man With No Anger: Scoring Lumet – an all-new featurette with film music historian Daniel Schweiger discussing acclaimed composer Quincy Jones and his collaboration with Sidney Lumet (2023)
* Trailers From Hell – Adam Rifkin commentary on Serpico

Where to watch The Pawnbroker