I'm back with another Best Picture Winner post. This time it's Gentleman's Agreement starring Gregory Peck. I wasn't planning on seeing this today, but it ended up being the perfect opportunity since it is Gregory Peck's birthday...
Well this movie had a lot to offer and there's a reason why it won Best Picture in 1947. Gregory Peck plays Philip Schuyler Green, a reporter who is given an assignment to cover a story on anti-Semitism. He feels what better way to actually know what it's like to be a Jew than to pose as one, so that is just what he does.
In posing as a Jew, he encounters hate and bigotry right away. His anger at the way he's being treated causes problems in his relationship with Kathy (played by Dorothy McGuire) who is the publisher's niece and the one who suggested the story.
It causes problems because with the "Gentleman's Agreement," which is shared in polite society that the biased attitudes between Christians and Jews is a conspiracy of silence, allowing prejudice to thrive. Kathy is upset by the pretense in order to get at the truth of hypocritical treatment the Jews suffer. The fact that she comes from a Christian Connecticut family causes strain as well.
When Phil's friend Dave (played by John Garfield) comes to town and finds out about Phil posing as a Jew, he warns him that he has let him and Phil's son, Tommy, in for a quiet onslaught of prejudice.
I also really love Celeste Holm's performance as Anne Dettrey. She is so cheerful and then tells Phil how she feels there needs to be action, and how she's tired of being just saying they are tolerant, but don't actually do anything to help the problem, and by doing that it makes it worse. I just really loved seeing how we see this side of the character that wasn't expected.
I love the scene where Elaine Wales, who is the secretary, finds out that he isn't really Jewish and is in fact Christian. That he is the same person as he as always been, but she just knows this about him. He tells her that she can't understand why someone would give up the glory of being a Christian to be a Jew is anti-semitism and that it doesn't matter what the race, it's the person that matters.
That is what I love about these classic films: the fact that these types of issues are addressed and how relevant they still are now. While they were controversial for the time, they are important films to see. They address the things that most people are afraid to talk about, the actors do it with such sincerity and Gregory Peck proves that.
Well Dave ends up talking to Kathy about things and gets to her understand Phil's point of view and they make up at the end.
Gentleman's Agreement is a truly wonderful film and it lets us all know how people and love are what should matter, not what race they are.
