"It's doomed from the start," exclaims journalist Philip Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck) regarding his new assignment, an exposé on anti-Semitism. "What could I possibly say that hasn't been said before?" The self-awareness of screenwriter Moss Hart's script (adapting the Laura Z. Hobson novel of the same name) is admirable, though a little disconcerting. How could a film that follows such a doomed endeavor succeed in illuminating an obvious—though at the time controversial—subject matter?
Employing Elia Kazan's skilled direction and assembling a wonderfully skilled cast certainly provides a fragment of resolution. But Gentleman's Agreement still struggles to escape the academic air it establishes early on. After Phil decides to pose as a Jew to obtain a firsthand understanding (it's impossible to get another man to truly open his heart, he surmises), the film skips from one anti-Semitic example to the next.
There are blatant displays of bigotry and discrimination, including a scene with a restricted hotel manager that gives Phil the opportunity to stare prejudice in the face. We learn that the film's title refers to an assumed agreement to refuse service to Jews, and that even within the Jewish population there are dogmatic notions.
From the very beginning, hints of romance dot the screen. Phil's son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) mentions his late mother and discloses his live-in grandmother's comments about Phil's finicky taste in women. Not long after, Phil meets his boss's niece, Kathy (Dorothy McGuire), and a courtship emerges.
Though their relationship has its sparks (the first kiss is underscored by a conspicuous push-in that should be hammy, but instead is remarkably affecting), I began to contemplate the necessity of the romantic element in what was shaping up to be an otherwise pedagogical examination of a pressing social topic. How will Phil's relationship with Kathy play out? Do great movies avoid the romance, or is it a necessary and harmonious component?
The film turns to its third act when Tommy comes home crying after anti-Semitic comments were hurled at him during school. "It's not true, it's not true," Kathy consoles, "you're no more Jewish than I am! It's just a horrible mistake." After Phil takes his son away to comfort him on his own, he returns to Kathy and her underhandedly prejudiced remark. "I've come to see that lots of nice people who aren't anti-Semitic—people who despise it and deplore it and protest their own innocence—help it along and then wonder why it grows."
After Kathy unknowingly reveals herself (and the latent nature of prejudice), the romance component becomes much more compelling. In a scene shortly after, Phil visits Anne (a coworker and longtime admirer of Phil, played by Celeste Holm) to discuss the nature of outspoken but inactive liberals. "They haven't got the guts to move from talk to action," Anne concludes.
Concurrently, Kathy meets Dave (Phil's Jewish childhood friend, played by John Garfield, who's moved to New York for a job and is looking for a home for his family) for dinner where they discuss an anti-Semitic comment that arose at a recent social gathering. "And what did you do?" asks Dave. "I just sat there and felt ashamed. We all just sat there." Again, Hart's screenplay lectures us on words vs actions, expatiating that apathy and indolence only perpetuate the problem. "It's got to be more than this," reasons Kathy, after the rest of the film had reached the same conclusion pages earlier.
In the penultimate scene between Phil and his mother, she reads his finished article and waxes philosophic about the potential future, pondering what this time in history will turn out to be. Soon, Dave shows up to tell Phil that Kathy has become a woman of action, not merely words. She's letting Dave and his Jewish family use her house in Connecticut while she stays with her sister, promising to chastise any anti-Semitic remarks that may arise.
As we begin to admire the ease with which the elements of Hart's screenplay come together, Phil races to Kathy's apartment, leaving us with only one—the romance, here revealed to be necessary, congruous, and perhaps fundamental. Though Gentleman's Agreement is an odd amalgamation—part romance, part academic exposition of postwar anti-Semitism—it succeeds in shedding light on a heated topic, the zealousness of which is matched only by the impassioned romance it plays alongside.
Employing Elia Kazan's skilled direction and assembling a wonderfully skilled cast certainly provides a fragment of resolution. But Gentleman's Agreement still struggles to escape the academic air it establishes early on. After Phil decides to pose as a Jew to obtain a firsthand understanding (it's impossible to get another man to truly open his heart, he surmises), the film skips from one anti-Semitic example to the next.
There are blatant displays of bigotry and discrimination, including a scene with a restricted hotel manager that gives Phil the opportunity to stare prejudice in the face. We learn that the film's title refers to an assumed agreement to refuse service to Jews, and that even within the Jewish population there are dogmatic notions.
From the very beginning, hints of romance dot the screen. Phil's son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) mentions his late mother and discloses his live-in grandmother's comments about Phil's finicky taste in women. Not long after, Phil meets his boss's niece, Kathy (Dorothy McGuire), and a courtship emerges.
Though their relationship has its sparks (the first kiss is underscored by a conspicuous push-in that should be hammy, but instead is remarkably affecting), I began to contemplate the necessity of the romantic element in what was shaping up to be an otherwise pedagogical examination of a pressing social topic. How will Phil's relationship with Kathy play out? Do great movies avoid the romance, or is it a necessary and harmonious component?
The film turns to its third act when Tommy comes home crying after anti-Semitic comments were hurled at him during school. "It's not true, it's not true," Kathy consoles, "you're no more Jewish than I am! It's just a horrible mistake." After Phil takes his son away to comfort him on his own, he returns to Kathy and her underhandedly prejudiced remark. "I've come to see that lots of nice people who aren't anti-Semitic—people who despise it and deplore it and protest their own innocence—help it along and then wonder why it grows."
After Kathy unknowingly reveals herself (and the latent nature of prejudice), the romance component becomes much more compelling. In a scene shortly after, Phil visits Anne (a coworker and longtime admirer of Phil, played by Celeste Holm) to discuss the nature of outspoken but inactive liberals. "They haven't got the guts to move from talk to action," Anne concludes.
Concurrently, Kathy meets Dave (Phil's Jewish childhood friend, played by John Garfield, who's moved to New York for a job and is looking for a home for his family) for dinner where they discuss an anti-Semitic comment that arose at a recent social gathering. "And what did you do?" asks Dave. "I just sat there and felt ashamed. We all just sat there." Again, Hart's screenplay lectures us on words vs actions, expatiating that apathy and indolence only perpetuate the problem. "It's got to be more than this," reasons Kathy, after the rest of the film had reached the same conclusion pages earlier.
In the penultimate scene between Phil and his mother, she reads his finished article and waxes philosophic about the potential future, pondering what this time in history will turn out to be. Soon, Dave shows up to tell Phil that Kathy has become a woman of action, not merely words. She's letting Dave and his Jewish family use her house in Connecticut while she stays with her sister, promising to chastise any anti-Semitic remarks that may arise.
As we begin to admire the ease with which the elements of Hart's screenplay come together, Phil races to Kathy's apartment, leaving us with only one—the romance, here revealed to be necessary, congruous, and perhaps fundamental. Though Gentleman's Agreement is an odd amalgamation—part romance, part academic exposition of postwar anti-Semitism—it succeeds in shedding light on a heated topic, the zealousness of which is matched only by the impassioned romance it plays alongside.
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