Le mur invisible

Gregory Peck is slick as a writer for a publisher who is trying to find something to inspire him after his wife dies. He must take care of his young son and has his mother in New York to help him out. Anti-Semitism hits a chord as WWII has just ended with news of the Holocaust just barely starting to sink into the national consciousness. The timing for release of this movie is obvious, but it is carefully thought out as the director tries to convey the sinister and insidious way in which prejudice worms its way into the mainstream of everyday life. A well done film that works! A clever and intelligent portrayal that deserved the attention it received. Not an entertaining movie in the strictest sense, but one where the audience must do the work of thinking their way through it. It is a film worth navigating, however, because the ugly mirror of prejudice is held up to us all who are watching. It makes you feel uncomfortable because most of us are guilty of witnessing prejudice but we end up doing nothing about it.

I recommend this film, but it won't be for everyone and many of us would rather just pass this one by. But we shouldn't even though it holds up this mirror making us feel guilty and uncomfortable. I should point out that the ending relating to the love interest in the story just doesn't work, but then that is not the purpose of the film. Prejudice, anti-Semitism and discrimination are, and these elements are worked out well. A disturbing but intelligent portrayal which is worth taking in for what it is worth.

I've seen a lot people describe this movie as "a period piece" and a great movie but irrelevant in our time.

However, this movie has lessons that every new generation should learn.

The lessons taught in this movie can be applied to other forms of prejudices such as sexism, racism, and homophobia among others.

Our society today is still full of "nice" people who detest bigotry and intolerance, but stand idly by while it happens right in from of them. Watching this movie could change all that.

Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

A "gentleman's agreement" is a euphemism for a polite, unspoken act of racial bigotry. Yes, a sort of wink to not allow blacks or hispanics or Jews into a certain resort or club or restaurant.

That's the real point of the movie. Not hard core racism or prejudice, but that subtle stuff, the stuff that goes on every day even now. And ultimately, it is aimed at the people who say, "I'm not prejudiced," and yet who let other people wink and act like polite bigots.

There is a lot of background to the movie, in the making and acceptance of it in the industry and in the country (in short, Hollywood insiders avoided the idea and the public liked it). But the main point is how the movie works and plays out as a story, then (in our heads) and now (on the screen).

The answer? Very well. Yes, it's "preachy" of course. Of course! That's what a message movie does. But does it do it well? Yes, but it does mean there is a lot of talking. The key talker and thinker is main character, goy journalist Phil Green, played by Gregory Peck. He struggles out loud through how to approach an article he has to do on anti-Semitism with his mom, and then struggles through the actual highly veiled anti-Semitism of his potential wife, played by Dorothy McGuire. We know they are made for each other, but McGuire's character just can't quite get how her "looking the other way" or "feeling outrage" isn't enough.

The real acting gem is by Celeste Holm, who plays a sidekick, another writer, and someone who audiences probably want to see with Mr. Green because she has innate principles and the guts to show them. (She won an Oscar, too!) John Garfield, who was Jewish, plays an openly Jewish character in a deliberately restrained role as a returning G.I. It's 1947, and the country that has helped to save the remaining Jews in concentration camps is now wondering how to "save" them at home from internal barriers.

It might have been a mistake to set the movie in New York City, which was over a quarter Jewish at the time and probably had more familiarity with assimilation and difference than the movie implies (especially at the publisher's). But the scenes in stuff Connecticut make more sense. There is the love plot pushed on the whole thing, and the weirdly perfect house that was built and decorated but never lived in as if that's the future, waiting and ready. And yes, there is all the talking and moralizing.

But give director Elia Kazan credit for making this as fluid and involving as he has, and cinematographer Arthur Miller's beautiful post-War visuals hold up that end of the experience really well. And you know what, the "lessons" built into this kind of "message" film are worth sitting through because we all need reminders of how insidious our own prejudices can be, and how we need to constantly address them, openly.

I hate to say it, but before I saw this movie, I did not realize that there was racism against Jews in the post war period. I couldn't understand it: why would Americans promote the very thing they fought against in the war? Then I was informed that they weren't fighting against racism or discrimination, but against the Nazi regime and genocide. There is a large difference between one person's opinion and a government policy. I'm a teenager, and the fact that Jews were still discriminated against was never mentioned to me. Maybe it should be better known. I am doing Modern History next year and we will be studying the Second World War, and I'm very glad I saw this film (despite its inaccuracies).

Anyway – now to the plot. Phillip Green (Gregory Peck) is a writer who pretends to be Jewish to find out about anti-Semitism. Through this, he learns how much people discriminate against Jews and it affects him deeply and changes his life.

I was never bored in this film. I am forever fascinated by Peck, who I've always remembered as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). This is only the second film I've seen with Peck in his younger days (it's quite a pleasure watching him). Celeste Holm also is amazing and I love how she can laugh so easily – very realistic. The only thing I wasn't satisfied with is the romantic choices by Peck's character. I wish he would have chosen the happy blonde Anne instead of the sappy, boring Kathy. Oh, how I was hoping he would choose Anne! Perhaps Dorothy McGuire was miscast; maybe someone else could have brought more energy to her character. John Garfield is fantastic as Green's Jewish friend.

This was ground breaking at the time and I really respect the people who participated in this film for taking a risk. Despite being made almost 60 years ago, I have not only learned from it but enjoyed it. Yes, there are some inaccuracies and plot holes, but I don't particularly care and it doesn't distract me. It's a great film, go see it.

It's hard for today's audience to appreciate the impact of Gentlemen's Agreement in 1947. The Holocaust was not in textbooks then, it was in newsreels showed in American theaters. The state of Israel was coming into being and there was debate about that with Harry Truman shortly overruling a lot of his own trusted advisers including his own Secretary of State George C. Marshall, in giving recognition to the nascent Jewish state.

During the course of the film names like Gerald L.K. Smith, Theodore G. Bilbo, and John E. Rankin are mentioned. The first was a Protestant evangelical minister who started out with Huey Long, but then developed a line of anti-Semitism in his sermons. He had a considerably large following back in the day though the Holocaust did a lot in killing his recruiting. Theodore G. Bilbo and John E. Rankin were a couple of Mississippi politicians who for their redneck constituency successfully linked anti-Semitism and racism. They didn't like foreign born either and used a whole lot of ethnic slurs.

But the anti-Semitism that Gregory Peck takes on is not that of Bilbo, Smith, and Rankin. It's the genteel country club anti-Semitism that manifests itself in restricted resorts, quotas as to how many Jews will some white shoe law firm accept if any, discrimination in hiring practices, unspoken covenants {gentlemen's agreements} not to sell to Jews in certain areas; all these we see in Gentlemen's Agreement.

Peck is given an assignment to write about it and he hits on a novel approach. Just being hired by publisher Albert Dekker, he gets Dekker's backing when he says he will pretend he's Jewish and see how he's being treated. He gets quite an experience in the bargain.

Running parallel to Peck's masquerade is his courtship of Dorothy McGuire. She's a divorcée, he's a widower with a young son. The whole thing puts a strain on their relationship, especially in dealing with her sister, Jane Wyatt who lives in one of those restricted by Gentlemen's Agreement communities.

Gentlemen's Agreement came up with several nominations and three Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director to Elia Kazan, and Best Supporting Actress to Celeste Holm as a tart tongued fashion writer at Peck's magazine who proves to be a friend. Peck himself was nominated for Best Actor, but lost to Ronald Colman for A Double Life. Holm also beat out Anne Revere nominated for the same film, probably helped by the fact that Revere had won a few years earlier for National Velvet.

John Garfield who was Jewish took a small supporting role in the film as Peck's long time childhood friend who educates Peck into how a Jew deals with the rebuffs he's finding out about. Had he not been up also for Body and Soul as Best Actor, he might well have earned a Supporting Actor nomination here.

Also note Sam Jaffe as the fictional professor Lieberman which is a thinly veiled caricature of Albert Einstein probably the most noted figure in the world of Jewish background. Like Lieberman, Einstein's a cultural Jew, not religious in any sense of the word. Nevertheless he was a leading figure at the time in the Zionist movement, having endured all that Peck endured in Germany and seeing what was coming with Hitler, fled his native Germany for safe harbor in the USA.

My favorite character in the film however has always been June Havoc as Peck's secretary. She changed her name to something ethnically neutral to get her job in the very magazine that will now crusade against anti-Semitism. She's also become a self hater, a phenomenon that other discriminated people also experience. GLBT activists are fully aware of what self hate has done, not hardly unknown among other groups as Ms. Havoc demonstrates.

Of course Gentlemen's Agreement is dated with its topical references to post World War II trends and events. Yet it still has a powerful message to deliver. It made Gregory Peck one of the great liberal icons of Hollywood and still should be seen by all as a great lesson in the pitfalls of unreasoning hate.