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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Gentleman's Agreement was the 1947 winner of 3 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Celeste Holm), and Best Director (Elia Kazan). Adapted from Laura Z. Hobson's best-selling book, this post-World War II classic caused a sensation through its confrontation of religious prejudice.
Gregory Peck plays the part of a renowned journalist who takes a daring and provocative approach to writing a series about post-War anti-Semitism in America for a national magazine. Whilst the plot includes some heavy-handed moralising and the dialogue can at times be condescending in its sermonising, these approaches are both necessary in exposing the hypocrisy of those who profess condemnation of prejudice in general, and anti-Semitism in particular, but unwittingly uphold it through their failure to actively stand against it.
Apart from its necessary and commendable primary theme, I love this film for its snappy 1940's New York parlance; the subplot love triangle between Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Celeste Holm; the childhood and ex-army comradeship between Peck and John Garfield, and the lost etiquette of romance contemporary to the era.
The original theatrical trailer included in the special features is really charming as it is in the style of a Movietone newsreel. Also included are a gallery of cast stills and subtitles in 10 languages as well as English for the hearing-impaired.
Still an excellent film and a must-have for your classics collection. Buy it!
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By father2
VINE™ VOICE
Format:DVD
For those who have never experienced the effects of racism it must be difficult to comprehend what that does to a person. This film involves a magazine writer Philip Schuyler Green - played by Gregory Peck - who poses as a Jewish man to find out how people will react. He does this because he has been assigned to write a series of articles on anti-semitism. The way ordinary people react to Green shocks him to the core and underlines the deeply rooted racism against Jews which was present at that time. The most moving scene in the film for me is when Green is confronted by outright racism in a hotel. Director Elia Kazan and producer Darryl F Zanuck took a great risk producing this film and they did so against a backdrop of other well know Jewish film-makers pleading with them not to make it, because they knew the furore that it would produce. In the event Gentlemans Agreement was a hugely successful film and went on to take three Oscars. Gregory Peck paid heavily for his involvement in this film because he was blackballed by one establishment after another for the next twenty years. Gentleman's Agreement is a very powerful film which has not lost any of it’s impact in the past five decades.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
You won't find a black person in the entire movie and yet this is from the great radical Twentieth Century Fox. There isn't even a mention of the holocaust as a launch for the protagonists interest in anti-semitism probably because the message that nice people allowing racist jokes and not standing up to anti-semitism leads to gas chambers and the holocaust.
Yet you have to look to the context of film making at the time and the readiness, or lack of it, of American audiences to watch movies on these themes to understand the radicalism of the movie in 1947.
The nice people who are condemned in this movie would be the nice people who made up its audiences. To make this film a success and make the audience challenge itself was quite a feat because this was not designed to be a gritty movie that nobody watched but a movie that would draw large audiences. Make the film harder and yo miss losing the audience you want to reach.
From this film must be seen the near beginning of films such as Guess Who's comint to Dinner which essentially covered the same issue but in one person's family, Heat of the Night, Mississippi Burning and In America. WEll done Twentieth Century Fox for starting the journey.
Incidentally, Gregory Peck was blackballed for evert country club he ever applied for as a direct result of challenging country club racism in this movie.
A good film, well directed with an outstanding cast.
Yet you have to look to the context of film making at the time and the readiness, or lack of it, of American audiences to watch movies on these themes to understand the radicalism of the movie in 1947.
The nice people who are condemned in this movie would be the nice people who made up its audiences. To make this film a success and make the audience challenge itself was quite a feat because this was not designed to be a gritty movie that nobody watched but a movie that would draw large audiences. Make the film harder and yo miss losing the audience you want to reach.
From this film must be seen the near beginning of films such as Guess Who's comint to Dinner which essentially covered the same issue but in one person's family, Heat of the Night, Mississippi Burning and In America. WEll done Twentieth Century Fox for starting the journey.
Incidentally, Gregory Peck was blackballed for evert country club he ever applied for as a direct result of challenging country club racism in this movie.
A good film, well directed with an outstanding cast.
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4.3 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
You Only Watch Once
Terribly well-meaning but without a shred of drama apart from the moment in the hotel perhaps when Peck is refused a room - then it gets close to the intensity required. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mario
3.0 out of 5 stars
Gentleman's Agreement
Gentleman's Agreement
Based on the novel of the same name by Laura Z Hobson (1900 -1986), and built on a similar plan to "To Kill a Mocking Bird" (also starring Peck in... Read more
Based on the novel of the same name by Laura Z Hobson (1900 -1986), and built on a similar plan to "To Kill a Mocking Bird" (also starring Peck in... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Wilberfalse
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable movie!
I bought this quite frankly because it stars John Garfield, one of my all-time favourite actors. It's only a small part that he plays, but it's a good part. Read more
Published 22 months ago by T. S. C.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic
It's surprising how well the theme stands up today given the simplistic treatment that reflects both the naivte of the time and the optimism and expectations of the immediate post... Read more
Published on 19 Jan 2011 by Mrs. Susan E. A. Andrews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Anti-semitism
Saw it the first time round and thoroughly enjoyed it and now over 60 years later I enjoyed it all over again.!It has stood the passing of time and is still food for thought.
Published on 10 Jan 2011 by Hikers
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gentlemen's Agreement
very enjoyable-Gregory Peck at his best.Showed up the prejudice against the Jews at that period in America and the suffering and indignity it caused to them.
Published on 26 Oct 2009 by Jane Austin
2.0 out of 5 stars
Important Historically, Esthetically Disappointing
Watching this film, I was incredulous that it was directed by Elia Kazan. The acting, for the most part, is shallow and hokey. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2009 by B. Phillips
1.0 out of 5 stars
Gentleman's Agreement
This film is all very worthy, and starts out as an investigation of anti-semitism, especially the tacit anti Jewish sentiment which was acceptable in society at the time of the... Read more
Published on 3 April 2006
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful
Wonderful film and very compelling. I am not Jewish, but I was saddened by how some of them were treated in America. Read more
Published on 23 Aug 2003 by C. Gregori
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not excellent
This film has many depths. I am an avid fan but this did not surpass my expectations. I have given it four stars because I enjoy the genre but I think that this film could have... Read more
Published on 22 Nov 2001
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