Gentleman's Agreement
by Elia Kazan
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anne Revere, Celeste Holm, Dorothy McGuire, Gregory Peck, John GarfieldDirector: Elia Kazan
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-01-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of Gentleman's Agreement
Movie Review: "Some of your best friends are Methodists, too, but you never seem to mention that."
Summary: 5 Stars
Do you, as do I, have to fight an urge to run for cover when the term "message movie" crops up? Not to worry, because in this case GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT (1947) is a fine movie with a great cast, excellent pacing, and just enough wit and verve to highlight its headon treatment of post-World War Two anti-semitism.
Gregory Peck plays Philip Green, writer for a NEWSWEEK-type weekly magazine, who sells himself on the subject of anti-semitism and goes semi-underground as "Philip Greenberg," a Jewish American who is determined to negotiate his life and get to all the good stuff (club memberships, social life, personal acceptance) that the then-WASP aristocracy controlled with varying degrees of denial and arrogance.
Phil finds himself not only making waves trying to do some of the things he could effortlessly have done the week before (check into a ritzy resort, for one example), but his fictional life spills over into his personal life almost before he realizes it. His son is ostracized at school and called a "Dirty Jew"; his girlfriend (beguilingly portrayed by Dorothy McGuire), while originally supportive, backs down and asks Phil to drop the Jewish moniker.
Along the way other veins of anti-semitism are mined. These include Phil's own secretary, a self-loathing type who changed her name from "Walinsky" to "Wales," knowing that "Wales" was the only way to get a job at the supposedly-liberal magazine. Also, a coterie of Manhattan-based Jewish businessmen get wind of what the magazine is researching, go to Phil's boss the editor, and ask him kindly to drop the subject and let them handle it "their way." According to the Internet Movie Data Base, this scene had a real-life origin: Early in the film's production, Twentieth Century-Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck (a German-American Christian) was confronted by a number of Jewish studio heads who asked him please not to make a movie on the subject of anti-semitism.
Peck's quiet integrity as an actor goes a long way toward selling this show, even in places where it might get a little preachy. He is surrounded by a marvelous supporting cast, including not only Dorothy McGuire but Jane Wyatt, Celeste Holm, young Dean Stockwell as his school-age son, and John Garfield (born Julius Garfinckel), Phil's Army buddy who offered the insight that anti-semitism is everywhere, whether conscious, personal and cruel, or aloof, unacknowledged and institutional.
GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT is by all measure a good solid film that can be viewed with profit even today. While watching it, I was reminded of later attempts by other groups (including, but not limited to African-Americans, Feminists, gay people and Hispanics) to make the case that they, too, had been excluded from the American dream due to stereotypes, prejudices, and the failure of good people to come to their aid. Amazon's low DVD price makes this film especially attractive.
Summary of Gentleman's Agreement
Elia Kazan directed this sometimes powerful study of anti-Semitism in nicer circles, based on Laura Z. Hobson's post-World War II novel. Gregory Peck is a hotshot magazine writer who has been blind to the problem; to ferret it out, he passes himself off as Jewish and watches the WASPs squirm. Seen a half-century later, the attitudes seem quaint and dated: Could it really have been like this? Yet the truth of the story comes through, in the wounded dignity of John Garfield, the upright indignation of Peck, and the hidden ways bigotry and hatred can poison relationships. That's particularly true in the Oscar-winning performance of Celeste Holm, who finds more layers than you'd expect in what seems like a stock character. --Marshall FineA journalist assigned to write a series of article on anti-semitism. Searching for an angle, he finally decides to pose as a Jew-and soon discovers what is to be a victim of religious intolerance.
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