Best Picture: #20
Original Release Date: November 11, 1947
Rating: Not Rated
Runtime: 1 hour, 58 minutes
Director: Elia Kazan
Quick Impressions:
We did it! We still found time to squeeze in a Best Picture winner even though school started this week. (And it’s not been an easy transition, believe me. For the past two months, I’ve been going to bed at 6:30. Now when I wake up at 8:00 and hear the “Good Morning” song playing in my son’s virtual kindergarten class, I feel like I’m living in Inception, listening to Édith Piaf. During breaks, I have no mental energy to write, so I just read All Quiet on the Western Front, perfect for my current state of depletion.) (But we’re all surviving, and we found time to squeeze in a fun science project, too! We made a battery out of lemons that actually works. Hooray!)
I’m so glad we found time for this movie. My daughter absolutely loved Gentleman’s Agreement. Twenty movies in, she’s finding it increasingly difficult to rank these films. I’m amazed and impressed that she keeps it up. This one clearly made a positive impression, debuting near the top of her list at #4.
As we watched, she repeatedly praised the way the movie tackles the tough topic of racism, saying, “I think it would resonate with people still, today,” and suggesting that theaters screen the film when they reopen.
Gentleman’s Agreement certainly resonated with her, touching on many of her favorite talking points. My daughter is extremely fond of railing against injustice, and so, as it turns out, is Phil Green once he gets going.
The Plot:
Widowed freelance journalist Phil “Schuyler” Green moves his young son Tommy and his aging mother from California to New York to accept an assignment from the magazine Smith’s Weekly. His editor wants him to write a piece on anti-Semitism. While he tries to think of an angle, he meets the editor’s niece Kathy and (very) quickly falls madly in love with her. Then the perfect plan occurs to him. He’ll use his real first name, Philip, drop the Schuyler, and pretend to be Jewish himself. By going undercover as a Jew, he’ll get a firsthand look at anti-Semitism in America. But this experiment has unintended consequences, and what begins as a professional endeavor soon turns personal. Phil quickly begins to see anti-Semitism everywhere, even where it is most unwelcome, in his fiancée, Kathy.
The Good:
I’ve read that Gregory Peck hated making this movie, and that Elia Kazan hated his performance. I don’t see anything particularly wrong with his performance myself. He’s just acting like Gregory Peck. The character has some clear flaws (the most notable that he decries everyone else’s shortcomings while completely ignoring his own). But Peck’s performance seems okay. Maybe we don’t see much interiority, but his line delivery remains inspiring and frequently prompted my daughter to chime in with enthusiastic agreement. I don’t know how this played in 1947, but in 2020, it’s pretty easy to see that Peck is broadly right about pretty much everything he says.
Of course, our own era is still full of racism and discrimination of every kind. My daughter noticed that unfortunately, this movie would be incredibly useful and topical today. She thought the focus should be changed from anti-Semitism (a new word to her) to some other type of discrimination. She didn’t think there’s much anti-Semitism today. To a degree, I agree with her. These days, you hardly ever even hear the words commonly bandied about in this movie to insult and denigrate Jews. (Remember the huge controversy when Michael Jackson wrote the song “They Don’t Care About Us” and introduced a particular word to a generation of kids who had never heard it before? And that was decades ago.) Most young people (who aren’t part of hate organizations) do not even know many of the words used to insult Jewish people in this film. But of course, there is still anti-Semitism. (Perhaps she is less aware of it because we are not Jewish.)
My daughter and I talked a long time about the KKK and how most major hate groups tend to hate everyone except the people in the group. The thing is, even if a number of insulting words have been all but retired from public discourse, the idea that white Christians are somehow superior to all other humans remains incredibly common in our own time. I think the anti-Semitism now is of the more subtle and insidious variety, but certainly it is still a problem.
Probably the best part about this movie is that it lets you feel so good about agreeing with most of the protagonist’s talking points. It’s very reassuring to hear someone say over and over again that all humans are equal and should be treated with dignity and respect. It’s also strangely exciting to watch someone’s eyes being opened to the depth of the problem. Peck’s character is one-hundred percent against anti-Semitism from the start. But it is still shocking to him when he “becomes” Jewish and experiences the unpleasant behavior first-hand. To a degree, he expected the poor treatment, but clearly he did not expect the depth of his own emotional response. I remember reading Black Like Me as summer reading before my sophomore year of high school. John Howard Griffin had to go to a lot of trouble to appear black. Schuyler Green basically just has to start going by his own first name “Phil” and telling a few people, “I’m Jewish.” He performs the same kind of social experiment that could be easily replicated by journalists looking for homophobia or discrimination against people with invisible disabilities. In part, the effortlessness of the transformation makes what it reveals so powerful to Green. He is literally exactly the same as he was before, and yet people treat him differently. (Of course, the one part of the experiment that bothers me is that we do not see Phil make any attempt to understand what it means to have a cultural and/or religious Jewish identity. I mean, he talks to his friend Dave, who happens to be Jewish. But his experiment is all about prejudice and how it feels to him to experience the prejudice. Then he lectures a woman who has actually been Jewish all her life on how she should be feeling and reacting. I’ll talk about that more later.)
Peck’s (Oscar nominated) performance seems perfectly serviceable to me. And some work by the supporting cast is really great. Dean Stockwell plays the young son in this movie! He’s so little! When I hear Dean Stockwell, I first think of his Quantum Leap era face. It’s so strange to see him as a child. He gives a good performance as Tommy, Phil’s son. Even better is Anne Revere as Phil’s mother. There’s something admirably, winningly solid about both the performance and the character.
My grandma (also from Omaha, Nebraska) always loved Dorothy Maguire. But I think she might have a hard time warming to her character in this film. Or maybe not. After all, my grandma was born in 1918 and had a different mindset about many things than I do. Perhaps she would have identified with Kathy’s take on Phil’s behavior. I personally find Kathy incredibly frustrating. The most frustrating thing about her is that she isn’t a bad person. She’s one of those well-meaning people who causes more problems than those actively trying to do harm. If Kathy is supposed to be totally exasperating, then Maguire is giving a great performance. (And very possibly, this is the case. She was Oscar nominated for her work here, too.) I can’t tell if Kathy exasperates me because she’s from 1947, or if she would also have exasperated audiences in 1947. I will say, though, that Maguire plays the character with great consistency. In fact, after watching the film, I feel like I have the best sense of who Kathy is as a person. (I do sympathize with her in that it must be quite difficult to live with someone who dramatically turns his life upside down every time he gets a new assignment. But she’s choosing that life herself.)
As Anne, Celeste Holm is just great. She won Best Supporting Actress for this performance, and I can see why. I’ve never seen such an electrifying performance from her. The character is really fun, and she gets to deliver a crackling monologue near the end. June Havoc (aka Gypsy Rose Lee’s sister) is also a welcome presence as Phil’s assistant Elaine. I would have welcomed more screentime for both Holm and Havoc. Both seem so centered and vivacious compared to Maguire’s Kathy. (I’m not knocking Maguire’s performance, just the character of Kathy who seems so impossibly wrong as a love interest for Peck’s character that eventually, it just becomes ridiculous.)
One thing quite intriguing about this film is that Jordan Peele definitely watched it. I mean, I haven’t asked Peele, obviously. But he must have watched it. In one scene, Peck’s Phil (who is pretending to be Jewish) must attend a tedious party in which the insipid attendees exhaustingly fall all over themselves making a show of not being bigots. To escape this, Phil and Kathy slip off into the woods together. For me, this really stirred up memories of Get Out. Then later, Phil sits with Celeste Holm’s Anne in a sitting room. She begins to stir her tea so noisily, clinking the spoon rhythmically against the sides of the cup. I would love to ask Jordan Peele if this movie influenced him. I’m pretty sure it did and that he’s already talked about it some place. After I finish this write up, I’ll probably see if I can dig up any pertinent interviews.
Best Scene Visually:
I love the way Kathy leads Phil away from the party. Not only does this part of the movie fondly remind me of Get Out, but there’s also beautiful visual symbolism going on. Like Ted from How I Met Your Mother, Kathy has poured all of her love into building the perfect home for her future self. Kathy is divorced you see, and she began putting this house together just before her first marriage. She made the house absolutely perfect. By the time she finished it, she realized she and her intended husband could never live happily there. He is the wrong person. She’s waiting for the perfect person.
Besides seeming like a potential red flag, this house makes a beautiful point. This house of Kathy’s is absolutely perfect. No one lives there. This says so much about how Kathy conceives of relationships, how she conceives of reality, how she sees Phil. If there’s anybody who could be imagined to live in a house too perfect for anybody to live in, it’s Phil. (But if I were Phil, I’d run.) What Kathy ultimately decides to do with this house makes a huge point about the direction the movie feels society must move in.
I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I could probably write an entire essay about this empty house that sits and waits for the perfect occupant to be worthy of it. (Actually, I’m sure I could. Essays don’t have to be that long. I didn’t set myself too much of a challenge.)
Best Action Sequence:
The best part in the entire movie comes when Dean Stockwell (who like Roddy McDowall is a better child actor than many) comes running home in tears because other boys have verbally abused him and refused to play with him because they believe he is Jewish. Stockwell gives a really good performance here, and this moment reveals something about Kathy that she can never take back.
Best Scene:
I’m torn. I love all the moments with Anne Revere as Phil’s sensible mother. Revere was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and she would have deserved the Oscar. He co-star Celeste Holm did win. I do love what would surely have been her Oscar clip today, the moment when Anne pours out her heart to Phil, openly criticizing Kathy and recommending herself as an alternative. Personally, I would have chosen Anne.
The Negatives:
Kathy and Phil are just not right for each other. This was the main subject of our running commentary as we watched the film. My daughter and I are in complete agreement here. If these two marry, they’re going to end up like the lead couple in Cimarron. (For those of you who haven’t seen that highly skippable film, the husband is an idealistic newspaper editor whose principles are so pure that he’s completely unable to hang around in human society and keeps disappearing for years at a time. Meanwhile, the wife loves her husband, but she has the morals, values, and viewpoints common to those around her and doesn’t actually espouse or even understand her husband’s unusually progressive views.)
Kathy and Phil are a horrible couple. Their courtship advances so quickly, and I think the fact that they seem to be having potentially relationship-ending fights every few days ought to be telling them something.
Now I completely agree that people can change—and should try to change when they see flaws within themselves. I see flaws within myself constantly and am always trying to improve myself. I appreciate the movie’s message here, Dave’s statement to Kathy that she is malleable. There’s no point telling someone, “You’re wrong, so lean into that. We can never be friends.” It’s much better to point out, “You can change. If you think you can do better, do better. If your behavior doesn’t match your view of yourself, work to change your behavior.”
But I’m not sure Kathy and Phil are ever going to be on the same wavelength, no matter how much she changes. The way she comforts Tommy is so telling. All of her other hesitation and hem-hawing is more an issue of readiness to show courage and accept, even force changes.
But when kids bully Tommy, her immediate reaction comes from her heart. We see that she genuinely cares for the child and also what she really, truly thinks. He comes home crying, saying that kids yelled verbally abusive things at him for being Jewish. She comforts him by saying something like, “Don’t worry. You’re not really Jewish. It’s all a mistake. You’re as Christian as I am.” That’s what she believes.
Consider, she could say, “It was wrong of those kids to call you names,” or, “That’s why your father is doing this because some kids are harassed like this all the time.” It’s such an opportunity for an object lesson.
It’s an awful moment because we see clearly that she genuinely does care for Tommy. But we also see that deep down, she believes that Jews are somehow inferior. She doesn’t say, “It’s wrong to call anyone ugly names.” She says, “You’re not really one of the ugly ones.” It’s tragic, really, because her quickness to reveal how she thinks shows her eagerness to comfort the child. She does want to be a good mother to Tommy. But his father must see that if she becomes his mother, she’s going to instill such beliefs in him.
I’m not saying that Kathy is a bad person. I do believe that she hates it when people are treated badly, made fun of, or discriminated against. But at heart, she thinks she’s better than Jewish people because she is Christian. And when she tries to “explain” this, she explains much better than she intends. Of course, it’s fine to be happy you’re a Christian. But when she says things like, “Just as I’m happy to be young instead of old, rich instead of poor, well instead of sick,” I mean… That is not at all the same thing as saying, “I take pride in being who I am.” It astonishes me that she can’t hear what she is saying herself.
Phil doesn’t just want to prevent discrimination and abuse. He actively champions the idea that all humans are the same, equal. No one is the best. We’re all the same. That’s really not what Kathy is saying. If I felt as strongly about these ideals as Phil seems to, then I would definitely not let Kathy become the mother of my child.
I’m not saying that Kathy is bad and Phil is a saint, though. I have issues with Phil, too. He seems to think that all people are equal, but that he’s the best of all of them for knowing it and saying so. He’s awfully self-righteous.
What really disturbs me is the way he lectures, berates, even physically shakes his secretary Elaine Wales. I do agree with his assertion that Miss Wales has perhaps internalized some of society’s anti-Semitic sentiment even though she is herself a Jew. But what exactly gives him the right to lecture her on how to be a Jew? She actually is Jewish. He merely pretended to be Jewish for eight weeks. I think his behavior toward her is ridiculous and annoying. His final tirade absolutely infuriates me. What gives him the right to lecture her, yell at her, cut her off, violently shake her? For one thing, he doesn’t know what she is actually trying to say there because he anticipates her objection and doesn’t even let her finish speaking. For another, he is clearly enraged about the situation with his fiancée and releasing his rage on his unoffending secretary. And finally, he is not Jewish. He may not like her ideas, but certainly she is entitled to her own perspective after having lived her own life. What gives him to right to co-opt her identity and correct her view of her own experiences? If I were Elaine, I’d be a hundred times more irritated by this guy than by the openly anti-Semitic hiring manager. At least she knew how to fool that idiot. You have no idea how to behave around this man. He’s so self-righteous and volatile, and his opinion keeps gradually being reshaped as he goes. By their last scene together, he’s acting crazy.
Overall:
I wish Phil’s own personal story ended a bit differently, but Gentleman’s Agreement is the type of movie that worked in 1947 and (unfortunately) would work just as well today. My eleven-year-old daughter absolutely loved the way it starts conversations that need to be had and thinks everyone should watch the film for that reason. Explorations of bigotry, racism, and other glaring flaws in society are always captivating, and here fine performances from the whole cast make the film just as enjoyable now as ever.