Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

In producer Darryl F. Zanuck's and director Elia Kazan's (and 20th Century Fox's) serious, preachy Best Picture-winning social drama, it was a landmark film and an historically-significant and tough expose of post-war anti-Semitism. Moss Hart's screenplay written directly for the screen (and partly revised by Kazan) was based upon Laura Z. Hobson's best-selling novel Gentleman's Agreement. It was first serialized in Cosmopolitan Magazine from November 1946 to February 1947, although now is somewhat dated in its impact.

The film's title referred to the "gentleman's agreement" practice of Gentiles (non-Jews) discriminating against Jews. The powerful, sentimental and melodramatic story was about a non-Jewish magazine reporter-journalist Philip Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck), a recently-widowed single father. He had writer's block about a new assignment - an expose-article on the subject of anti-Semitism for his liberal Smith Weekly magazine publisher John Minify (Albert Dekker) - until he decided to go undercover and pose as a Jew himself (with the name Phil Greenberg) to have a first-hand experience. Predictably, he encountered prejudice, scorn and hatred. Deeply-rooted prejudice and underlying anti-Semitism were revealed in his friends, colleagues, and casual acquaintances.

It was one of the first Hollywood films to confront the problem of anti-Semitism, bigotry and religious prejudice. It was a controversial film that might not have been made, due to concerns that it would stir up anti-Semitic attitudes and increase intolerance. However, it became a major financial and critical hit for Fox in 1948. This morality tale was one of a number of films that explored serious social issues in the 1940s.

Kazan's daring film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor, Best Screenplay (Hart), Best Film Editing, Best Actress (Dorothy McGuire), and Best Supporting Actress (Anne Revere), and won three Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress (Celeste Holm). On a budget of almost 2ドル million, the film grossed 7ドル.8 million.

• the crusading, non-Jewish (Gentile) magazine writer Phil "Schuyler" (pen name) Green (Gregory Peck) had recently moved from Los Angeles, California to New York with his innocent 11 year-old son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) and his aging, live-in mother Mrs. Green (Ann Revere); he had been widowed for seven years; he was staying in an apartment arranged with his publisher
• the topic of anti-Semitism was introduced in an early breakfast scene when Phil spoke to his son Tommy about prejudiced anti-Semite sentiment: "Oh, that's where some people don't like other people just because they're Jews"; when Tommy pressed: "Why? Are they bad?", he added: "Well, some are, sure and some aren't, it's just like everybody else"; ultimately, Phil found it "tough" to really explain the reason for the Jewish hatred, except that some people were "mixed up"
• novelist Phil spoke to his live-in mother Mrs. Green in their NYC apartment about how he was struggling with the "angle" or approach he should take for his next writing assignment at his new job - a national magazine known as Smith's Weekly; his publisher John Minify (Albert Dekker), actually his niece Kathy, had requested that he write an expose about anti-Semitism; Phil's initial idea was to try and capture on paper the feelings of his long-time Jewish childhood friend Dave Goldman (John Garfield), who was currently serving overseas in the Army:
  • "Can I think my way into Dave's mind? He's the kind of fellow I'd be if I were a Jew, isn't he?...Whatever Dave feels now - indifference, outrage, contempt - would be the feelings of Dave not only as a Jew but the way I feel as a man, as an American, as a citizen. Is that right, Ma?...Hey, maybe I've broken this log jam, Ma, maybe this is it?"
• but then he realized as he sat at his typewriter that he was at an impasse, and that his approach to try and enter into the mind of a Jew wouldn't work:
  • "There isn't any way you can tear open the secret heart of another human being."
• in a breakthrough with his mother, Phil decided to adopt an unorthodox approach in order to gather truthful material (in an unbiased way) for a series of articles: ("I Was Jewish for Six Months"): he would assume a Jewish identity as Phil Greenberg for six months to experience at first hand discrimination and anti-Semitism:
  • "I can just tell them I am and see what happens....Dark hair, dark eyes. Sure, so has Dave. So have a lot of guys who aren't Jewish. No accent, no mannerisms. Neither has Dave."
• after Phil's assignment was announced by his publisher Minify during a luncheon, Phil casually mentioned that he was Jewish; afterwards, he engaged in a discussion with his bothered secretary Elaine Wales (June Havoc) (who was Jewish herself, but had changed her name from Estelle Walovsky to obtain employment); she couldn't believe that he was willing to give up his 'Christian' identity for eight weeks for the sake of a story, and he defended himself:
  • "Face me, now Miss Wales. Come on, now look at me. Same face, same eyes, same nose, same suit, same everything. Here. Take my hand. Feel it! Same flesh as yours, isn't it? No different today than it was yesterday, Miss Wales. The only thing that's different is the word Christian."
• she described how even Smith's Weekly ("The great liberal magazine that fights injustice on all sides") revealed its own anti-Semite prejudice to her when she applied for a position, and only by changing her name was she able to secure a job; as he spoke to her, he politely reprimanded her for using prejudiced words, when she reacted to the magazine's new hiring-practices announcement that it would no longer be hiring with prejudice against Jewish applicants:
  • "Now look, Miss Wales, we've got to be frank with each other. You have a right to know right now that words like yid and kike and kikey and n----r and coon make me kind of sick no matter who says them"
• almost immediately, Phil faced discrimination and personal slurs; he experienced a confrontation when checking into a high-class luxury hotel where it was suspected that he was Jewish (from his name) - the manager (Morgan Farley) directly asked:
  • "In answer to your question. May I inquire, are you? - That is, uh, do you follow the Hebrew religion yourself, or is it that you just want to make sure?"
• then the manager announced that there were no vacancies and refused to answer Phil's direct and simple questions about his bias on restricting guest clientele to Gentiles:
  • "Look, I'm Jewish and you don't take Jews - that's it, isn't it?...If you don't accept Jews, say so!...Do you or don't you?"
• Phil's Jewish friend Dave Goldman arrived back in the States after completing his service, to temporarily live with Phil while transitioning to a new job, and finding a house or apartment for his wife Carol and his family; Phil told Dave about the negative reactions to him during his experience of being regarded as a "Jew"; Dave reacted to the impact that Phil's effective yet unorthodox impersonation of being Jewish was having - and told him he should have realized he would face an onslaught of hate:
  • "You crazy fool. And it's working?... You're not insulated yet, Phil. It's new every time so the impact must be quite a business on you!"
• Phil responded: "You mean you get indifferent to it in time?"; Dave answered:
  • "No, but you're concentrating a lifetime thing into a few weeks. You're making the thing happen every day, going out to meet it. The facts are no different, Phil, it just telescopes it, makes it hurt more."
• later in the film, Dave had given up and decided to quit his job because he had been unable to find a house or apartment for his family due to his Jewish identity
• Phil again spoke to his romantic interest and fiancee - divorced (for two years) nursery school-teacher Kathy Lacey (Dorothy McGuire), his publisher's niece; Phil suggested that Dave rent her vacant cottage in Darien, CT - the city where her prejudiced sister Jane (Jane Wyatt) also lived; Kathy resisted, fearing that her neighbors might cause trouble:
  • "It wouldn't work, Phil. It would just be too uncomfortable for Dave knowing that he had moved into one of those neighborhoods. Darling, don't you see that? It's detestable, but that's the way it is. It's even worse in New Canaan. There nobody can sell or rent to a Jew. And even in Darien, where Jane's house is and my house is, there's sort of a gentleman's agreement..."
• disgusted and incredulous, Phil was astounded that Kathy wouldn't fight back:
  • "You're not gonna fight it, Kathy. You're just gonna give in, play along, just let their idiotic rules stand...You can tell them to go jump in the lake"
• an incident occurred that caused a rift between Phil and Kathy; Tommy had been taunted and assaulted by his school-mates, who believed he was Jewish; Phil tensely confronted Kathy and lectured her about how she had been secretly (and unknowingly) acting as a superior, white Christian to Tommy, after the boy had been the object of anti-Jewish bullying:
  • "You've only assured him that he's the most wonderful of all creatures: A white Christian American. You instantly gave him that lovely taste of superiority - the poison that millions of parents drop on the minds of millions of children."
• he told Kathy what he had learned during his assignment - he described how pervasive anti-Semitism, bigotry and prejudice were found amongst even "good" and "nice" people; his implications caused her to ask: "You really do think I'm an anti-Semite"; he replied:
  • "No, it's just that I've come to see that lots of nice people who aren't, people who despise it and detest it and deplore it, and protest their own innocence, then help it along and wonder why it grows. People who would never beat up a Jew, a young kike or a child. People who think that anti-Semitism is something away off in some dark crackpot place with low-class morons. That's the biggest discovery I've made about this whole business. The good people, the nice people."

• as a result, Phil announced that his plans had changed; she realized that due to their constant disagreements, their plans to marry were off; she was upset:
  • "We could have been so happy. We had so much to enjoy and so much to share. And I hate you for taking it away from both of us"
• Phil notified his publisher that he was packing up and moving back to California, and would be finishing up his work
• afterwards, he had a few words with his friend, witty fashion editor Anne Dettrey (Celeste Holm) who now felt, due to her unrequited love for him, that there might be an opening for her with Phil; in a brief monologue, she told Phil that she thought Kathy was "afraid" - one of those many cowardly "hypocrites" who wouldn't stand up to neighbors and thus would let Dave lose his job opportunity; she denigrated Kathy and others who were ineffectual against prejudice:
  • "They haven't got the guts to take the step from talking to action. One little action on one little front. Sure, I know it's not the whole answer, but it's got to start somewhere. And it's gotta be with action...It's gotta be with people. Nice people, rich people, poor people, big and little people. And it's gotta be quick. But not Kathy. She can't. She never will. She doesn't rate you, Phil."
• Anne concluded optimistically by telling Phil that there might be hope if he found the "right" person who was completely compatible with him - hinting that it could possibly be her:
  • "There's time. If two people are right for each other, they usually discover it in time. If I had a kid I loved, I'd want him to be brought up with people who felt the way I did about the basic things"
• when Phil asked if she was "proposing" marriage to him, she answered demurely: "Maybe, maybe I am"
• during a later conversation between Kathy and Dave in a restaurant, she explained how she had poorly handled a bigoted joke, and hadn't 'socked back' and resisted, as Phil had once suggested to her; Dave described to her how Phil had always wanted a compatible life-partner:
  • "A man wants his wife to be more than just a companion, Kathy...He wants a sidekick, a buddy, to go through the rough spots with and she has to feel that the same things are the rough spots, or they're always out of line with each other"
• Dave urged that she must immediately react against any anti-Semite comments and behavior by calling it out and confronting it, but not by striking back with anger against those who criticized her for her prejudices
• in the film's final scene, after Phil's heart-ailing mother had read outloud some of the lines from his recent article, Phil was encouraged that she had been strengthened, motivated to live longer, and was now hopeful for the future:
  • "You know something, Phil? I suddenly want to live to be very old. Very. I want to be around to see what happens. The world is stirring in very strange ways. Maybe this is the century for it. Maybe that's why it's so troubled. Other centuries had their driving forces. What will ours have been when men look far back one day? Maybe it won't be the American century after all, or the Russian century or the Atomic century. Wouldn't it be wonderful, Phil, if it turned out to be Everybody's century, when people all over the world - free people - found a way to live together? I'd like to be around to see some of that, even the beginning. I may stick around for quite a while"
• shortly later, Dave arrived to report that he would be remaining in the area, and taking a job; he was summoning his family from California to join him, and they would be moving into Kathy's vacant cottage in Darien, CT; apparently, Kathy had decided to live with her sister Jane in Darien, CT for the summer, and work on combating anti-Semitism there
• impressed by the news of Kathy's personal growth, Phil rushed over to Kathy's place, and wordlessly embraced and reconciled with her (shot from a distance), as the film faded to black