Philip Green (Gregory Peck) is a widower journalist who has just moved from California to New York with his mother (Anne Revere) and son (Dean Stockwell). An editor, Mr Minify (Albert Dekker) asks him to write a big, ground-breaking piece on antisemitism. Green, whilst also falling in love with Minify’s niece, Kathy Kacy (Dorothy McGuire), decides to pretend to be Jewish in order to see what Jewish people are subjected to in late-40’s America. He soon finds himself unable to book certain hotel rooms, kept hidden from his girlfriend’s well-to-do family, and finds his own son to be bullied and ostracised by other children at school. Yup, it’s THAT bad.
Doug says...
Hatred is an ugly thing. Which makes it perfect for the subject of an Oscar winning film! Only two years after the end of World War II, and the subsequent reveal of the Holocaust and to what depths of humanity the Nazis had abominably gone to, is a film about anti-semitism. What is all the more interesting then is the fact that no one mentions the Holocaust or even the War. This is not a film about huge, overt signs of hatred, it is far more focused on the tiny minute differences that eventually build up into the huge things. The Holocaust didn’t happen out of nowhere, anti-semitism was carefully built up and maintained, added to.
I’ve just finished reading Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and there’s a worrying symmetry to this refrain. Nothing happens out of the blue - hatred starts small, a disliking, whispers, which then build into a refusal to let a woman carry money or a Jewish person take a room at an exclusive hotel. Then of course we are on the deadly track and we end with death and utter chaos.
So the matter of this movie is extraordinarily important, and there are some standout moments too. A scene where a Jewish soldier is abused by a drunken man whose friends immediately hush him up and apologise - yet we are left thinking they’re only sorry for him speaking those thoughts out loud. Another where Philip Green’s fiance Kathy pleads that she isn’t anti-semitic but then reveals she said nothing when a man made a revolting joke about Jews and only sat there, stewing with disgust. It’s that moment which captures the point of this film - you have to say something. Sure, you don’t hate this sector of humanity, but you don’t care enough to speak up when they’re attacked. And that will eventually roll and build into disaster.
The author, Moss Hart, is a well-known name in this era of showbiz, and such a weighty script from him is a rarity. It’s sometimes utterly transcendent - the moment when Philip Green’s heavily pro-equality mother declares she wants to live longer in order to see the world become more equal is fantastic - and then in rather too many places it becomes mawkish sentimentality. There’s far too many ‘stage-kisses’, there’s a hell of a lot of speeches that are meant to be stirring and end up a bit too saccharine even for me.
I’m also - dare I say it - getting rather sick of the dewy-eyed heroine role who could be played by the same actress in each of the last few films, for all the different it makes. It’s not that Dorothy McGuire who plays Kathy is bad necessarily, just that she’s a carbon copy of Teresa Wright from The Best Years of Our Lives and Jane Wyman from The Lost Weekend. This is largely the fault of the writers and directors, but then when they give us women like Celeste Holm’s character Anne Dettrey, who is fiery and anti-hypocrite and stands up for justice, there’s no excuse. Even though Kathy’s change of heart is vital, she could at least be a bit more interesting.
Acting wise, it’s pretty standard although I will always admire Celeste Holm who brings fire and passion to anything she does - in High Society she’s a comic highlight and I love her in All About Eve which we are seeing in a few weeks time. Gregory Peck is fine as the increasingly angry writer Philip - and by god is he attractive. They do not make film stars like that anymore. Ultimately though, while this film is important and they tackle the subject matter well, I’m beginning to get tired of the rather dated stage-acting and tendency to allow mawkishness to rule.
Highlight
The moment when Philip storms into a hotel that is ‘exclusive’ (ie doesn’t let Jews in but they don’t say it explicitly) and gets stage-managed out by the Manager who won’t say why is INFURIATING. More of this would have been better.
Lowlight
Aside from all the long saccharine speeches, the one scene where Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire did three terrible stage-kisses in thirty seconds was just awful.
Mark
6.5/10
Paul says...
The 1940’s has become slightly Sesame Street in its “topic of the week” films. We’ve tackled poverty, refugees, alcoholism and PTSD, and this week, kids, our word of the day is…..antisemitism!
As Doug explains, Gentleman’s Agreement tackles that small-minded, subtle racial prejudice that exists in the little comments and actions we make. As terrible as Nazi protestors in Charlottesville are, what this film points out is that, just as horrible are comments like “I’m not racist but I don’t date black people” or “I’m not homophobic- I work next to a lesbian.” Here, Green is furious to discover that hotels are suddenly fully-booked when they realise he is Jewish, and that his own girlfriend is prevaricating around introducing him to her excessively white-Christian family. His ailing mother’s doctor doesn’t have anything bad to say about Jewish medical consultants- but doesn’t outrightly recommend them also.
What the film does so well is depicting this list of mini-vilifications which are relatively harmless on their own but, together, form a prejudiced and hypocritical society. It would have been so easy to have had bad people with swastikas on their heads yelling “I hate Jews!”, but instead characters’ wrongdoings and derogatory comments can sometimes be unnoticeable. This is so relevant in today’s society where inequality is more commonly camouflaged beneath, for instance, a US President who won’t condemn a group of Nazis or a TV corporation who pays their male staff a lot more than their female. A modern-day remake of this film could have a male journalist pretending to be homosexual in a football club.
It’s not absolutely perfect, however. I must admit that the first half hour left me thinking “oh God” because the set-up was slow to get going, and we have to sit through scenes in which Green explains antisemitism and religious conflict with his son just like, in fact, an episode of Sesame Street. The writers could have had faith in its audience’s education to know what the characters are talking about. Also, like The Lost Weekend, there is a cop-out feel-good ending to the central romance which left me somewhat infuriated and even insulted by how easily Green can forgive Kathy’s own racial prejudice.
The director, Elia Kazan, and Gregory Peck himself would later criticise the movie for having a lack of power and losing its relevance over time. Admittedly, this is true, but I enjoyed its heartfelt analysis of an uncomfortable and inconspicuous topic. Gentleman’s Agreement does what every good piece of art should do- it holds a mirror up to society and says “Look at yourself, this is what you are. Now, change!”
Highlight
When Philip Green’s son comes home to reveal he has been insulted by bullies at school who have called him many racial slurs that I can’t type here. It features some surprisingly good acting from a child.
Lowlight
The ending in which Kathy’s prejudices and horrific attitude towards social minorities is suddenly forgiven and she gets a very undeserved happy conclusion.
Mark
8/10
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