Review of Gentleman's Agreement (1947) by Christi P — 23 Oct 2008

Wow. I can't believe I didn't know this movie existed. The upstanding Wasp journalist sets out to prove anti-semitism (exists? is hard? is bad?) by posing as a Jew. Part of the hilarity is that he does this by changing his name from "Phil Skylar Green" to "Phil Green." When he introduces himself this way, Wasps look furtively around and wince anti-semitically. Green: who knew that without the goyish middle name it was automatically Jewish.

The movie has a lot of amazing scenes, such as when the protagonist's girlfriend at various moments "can't take it" anymore, "everyone thinks you're _Jewish_!" but eventually learns a valuable lesson from John Garfieldâ??s character as the Jewish Friend. Also the memorable moment when Green heads to one of the tacitly no-Jews resorts and demands to know whether or not the hotel is "restricted." He heads out with confident, all-American aplomb and by the end of the episode is completely deflated.

The whole movie seems forebodingly tinged with the fact that cast and crew members ended up getting hauled before HUAC. This movie was walking the line, or attempting to, in so many ways. You can sense the tension in the script. They wanted to say something important about anti-semitism in American life without indicting that American life. They were trying to take a progressive stance and they were received by the McCarthyites as radicals.

But what is weird is that the movie is inevitably more radical than it is attempting to be. In the midst of all the contrived and anguished dialogue, fighting with itself to fight anti-semitism without accusing anti-semites, it inevitably does more than it says, embodying the ordinariness of it all, not so much in Peckâ??s unswayable archetypal Green but in the supporting roles, their nervousness, their anxiety, their will to cover up the unbearable and move on.