Review of Gentleman's Agreement (1947) by Dave J — 22 Sep 2011

Tuesday, September 20, 2011.

(1947) Gentleman's Agreement.

SOCIAL COMMENTARY DRAMA.

Inspiring writer(Gregory Peck) has an opportunity to work for popular magazine, but in order to prove he's qualified to handle any written assignments, he's ordered to write about a tough subject seldom written before, about "anti-semintism". So instead of doing any research and writing about the subject, he decides to use himself sort of an experiment by letting everyone know he's Jewish- his mother and his biological son included are also in this game as well and write about this instead! But as a result of doing this, his love life becomes very complicated as soon as he proposes marriage, leading her to involve other people, who eventually witnesses first hand about peoples reactions, particulary toward people who're Jewish!

Second film I've seen he's done about racism, the other To "Kill A Mockingbird" released in 1962 whereas, in order to fully understand this, one would have to stick it out until at least half way! I have to say, some of the racist words quoted in this film can still be offensive, but uses them to make it's point! I liked this film, but preferred that his love life would turn to someone else rather than the other girl he proposes, since they barely see eye to eye on the subject anyway! Oddly enough though, actor John Garfield also stars as Peck's Jewish friend, but in real life one of the actors who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for being a Communist, the reason why this was odd because this film directed by Elia Kazan mentioned 10 people working in the film industry at random for no apparent reason, just so he can contunue to make films, preventing others from working from doing just that in the process because they were blacklisted!

2.5 out of 4.