Gentleman's Agreement

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.

In his commentary for the DVD of `Gentlemen's Agreement,' critic Richard Schickel spends some of it criticizing the flaws in the movie (something I wish more commentaries would do). Mostly I disagreed with him, especially about Dorothy McGuire's fine performance. She has by far the toughest role in the picture as Gregory Peck's conflicted fiancée, whose complacent belief that she doesn't have an anti-semitic bone in her body is severely tested when he decides to pretend to be Jewish for a newspaper article. I often think of prejudice as the act of automatically assuming something is fact about someone we don't know, based on stereotypical preconceived notions. Anti-semitism is the reference point for the movie, but what it really does is examine the subject of prejudice from many different angles, from its most virulent to its most subtle forms. It even explores the role played by Jewish self-hatred in exacerbating the problem. The only time the film begins to resemble an `After School Special' is in Ann Revere's preachy speech towards the end. On balance, however, `Agreement' is much more complex than it's been given credit for. (I may be too late, but in answer to the User Commenter who wanted to know the name of the main title theme: it's an Alfred Newman original that is only heard that one time in the film. He developed it more extensively a couple of years later in Kazan's "Pinky.")

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.

Although one certainly cannot say Gentleman's Agreement is not passionate in its aim to uncover the invisible cloak of anti-Semitism in post-war America, the execution of that objective could have used slightly more dramatic tension and immediacy.

Released the same year and touching on the same subject was Edward Dmytryk's Crossfire, which dealt with anti-Semitism at its extremes: murder with anti-Semitism as the motive. Gentleman's Agreement takes a more humanistic and subtle approach--one that is too subtle at times. Where Crossfire dropped the bomb of anti-Semitism into the laps of the audience, Gentleman's Agreement gives it to you in periodic shots in the arm in the form of a sermon, and each one says the exact same thing: anti-Semitism is bad. (But we knew that.) Yes, the message is an important one, but feeding it to the audience in a manner that is literally shoving it down our throats every few minutes doesn't help the digestion any.

Also lacking in Gentleman's Agreement is a three-dimensional protagonist. Peck's crusading writer who masquerades as a Jew is simply too zealous and unswerving for his own good. He has no faults, no inner conflicts and no doubts about himself. Whether he's being shunned by bigots or Dorothy McGuire, he's such a straight-shooter you know what he's going to do before he does: the right thing right away.

There's no real dramatic arc in the story, with the entire weight of the movie resting on the torrid on-again-off-again love affair between Peck and McGuire. She symbolizes the hypocrisy and passiveness of the everyday American on anti-Semitism, and he points it out to her every chance he gets-and that's all. It pretty much rambles on the same dramatic level all throughout the picture, dividing its time between love scenes and sermons, most of which are indistinguishable from one another.

In the end, the important message and the overall entertainment value of the picture suffers from this redundancy.

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.