Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront, Dr Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night) launched a stellar career as a serious actor with his Oscar-nominated performance as an embittered concentration camp survivor running a pawnshop in 1960s Harlem. A powerful drama from director Sidney Lumet, who made some of Hollywood’s most visionary political/social dramas (12 Angry Men, Network, Dog Day Afternoon). The film was the first made entirely in the US to take the perspective of a Holocaust survivor and in 2008 was chosen by the Library for Congress for preservation by the US National Film Registry as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

Holocaust Month Film, Members Choice Q&A with film historian Peter Evans, special guest Mayor of Merton.

‘Mixture of European art movie … and American ciné-vérité.’ Time Out