Film Friday: Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
For my last Oscar-themed «Film Friday» I decided to bring you the Best Picture winner of 1947. This was the second Gregory Peck film I saw — the first was Designing Woman (1957) — and my first time seeing both John Garfield and Dorothy McGuire on screen. Directed by Elia Kazan, Gentleman's Agreement (1947) tells the story of Philip Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck), a widowed journalist who moves to New York City with his son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) and mother (Anne Revere) to work for a magazine called Smith's Weekly . His publisher, John Minify (Albert Dekker), wants him to write a series of articles on the subject of anti-Semitism. The project was suggested by Minify's divorced niece Kathy Lacey (Dorothy McGuire), with whom Phil soon falls in love. In order to get genuine insight into the matter, Phil, a gentile, decides to adopt a Jewish identity («Phil Greenberg») and write about his first-hand experiences in an article entitled «I Was Jewish For Six Months.» As Phil ...