It was the subject no Hollywood studio would touch.
It was the movie powerful moguls tried to stop.
Now, more than six decades later, "Gentleman's Agreement" gets a rare theatrical screening at TCC Roper Performing Arts Center. Although it must be seen in the context of its time (released in 1947), it retains a good deal of the controversy that threatened to blow the lid off Hollywood's hypocrisy and put the subject of anti-Semitism into popular culture.
The movie earned eight Academy Award nominations and won for best picture, best director (Elia Kazan) and best supporting actress (Celeste Holm). The film, a love story and a social commentary, starred Gregory Peck as a journalist who claimed to be Jewish to help him write a story about anti-Semitism. His fiancee, an upper-crust society type played by Dorothy McGuire, thought the masquerade would have no effect but soon found her family and friends pressuring her to end the affair.
It was the biggest box office hit of the year for its studio. It is very much a Hollywood product made to entertain, yet it socked across a message that was new to many Americans.
After World War II brought about the defeat of fascism, people hoped the unity that won the war would be remembered.
Anti-Semitism was largely written off as an evil European blight, while Americans had a hardly whispered "gentleman's agreement" that fostered restricted clubs and property sales.
Even though Laura Z. Hobson's novel was a best-seller, Hollywood studios avoided any efforts to make a movie of "Gentleman's Agreement" until Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of 20th Century Fox, stubbornly insisted on putting it into production.
Ironically, Zanuck was one of the few Hollywood moguls who was not Jewish. A Protestant from Nebraska, he had Dutch origins. He was once barred from a hotel, though, because of his suspiciously "foreign" name. It rankled him.
He faced opposition from Jewish studio heads, who urged him "not to rock the boat." They had a point. The House Un-American Activities Committee eventually called many of the people involved in the film to testify in its hearings about communism in the United States.
John Garfield was a big star, but he took a supporting role in "Gentleman's Agreement" expressly to "out" his Jewishness and to support the film's message. He was called before the committee and refused to name names. Hounded by the FBI, he died of a heart attack, at age 39, the night before he was to testify before the committee again.
Other cast members called before the committee were June Havoc and Anne Revere, an Oscar winner two years before for "National Velvet," who refused to name names and was blocked from movie work for 20 years.
Director Kazan, on the other hand, named names and, consequently, faced hatred and controversy for the rest of his life while his career flourished. His honorary Oscar, decades later, provided one of the Oscars' most controversial nights.
I'll introduce and host the film, rarely shown in theaters. The showing is part of the Virginia Festival of Jewish Film, which continues through Sunday. There will be one showing only.
Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com
Source:hamptonroads.com/