Kathy (Dorothy McGuire): You think I'm an anti–Semite.
Phil (Gregory Peck): No, I don't. But I've come to see lots of nice people who hate it and deplore it and protest their own innocence, then help it along and wonder why it grows. People who would never beat up a Jew. People who think anti–Semitism is far away in some dark place with low–class morons. That's the biggest discovery I've made. The good people. The nice people.
There have always been personal comfort zones, I suppose, and people become more inclined to guard them and hold on to them tightly as time passes.
That which is different and unfamiliar can be very frightening, very threatening. I suppose that is some sort of primitive self–defense mechanism buried deep in our DNA. It's there to protect us.
And that was probably a good thing up until a certain point in human development. It was prudent to be wary of people and things that were unfamiliar. Changes came slowly and gradually gained acceptance once people discovered they could trust those changes — like giving up a horse and buggy for one of them newfangled automobiles.
It is probably a byproduct of technological development, but changes happen at a more rapid pace now than they did for previous generations. Those generations could continue to live in their comfort zones for most, if not all, of their lives, but that really isn't possible today.
I often find myself lamenting changes — and I know that some are just minor annoyances, really. No big deal. For example, I used to enjoy watching the marching bands at halftime of football games on TV. Some were really good. I'm sure some are really good today, too, but you never know unless you attend the game in person and remain in your seat at halftime — or unless whoever is televising the game shows a five–second snippet of the band (most likely on the sideline waiting for the half to begin).
Otherwise they are treated as afterthoughts.
But as I say, that's a minor thing. There are bigger things, like human relations. People are more sensitive to how they treat others and the language that they use than I can remember at any other time in my lifetime — and that's a good thing, even though there are times when I think things get taken too far.
There is much progress still to be made, but I am a student of history, and I believe it is always important to remember how far we have come. Without that memory, no matter how painful it might be, permanent progress isn't possible.
And "Gentleman's Agreement," which premiered 70 years ago today, is a reminder of how far we have come — and perhaps how far we have yet to go.
Granted, the story is a bit dated now, but the message is still good.
Gregory Peck played a writer for a progressive magazine who had agreed to write about anti–Semitism, but he struggled to think of a good angle — until he came up with the idea of posing as Jewish to see what kind of reactions he received. He was new to the magazine so most of the people who worked there knew little about him, and he felt he could use that in his article.
He didn't intend to confine himself to the magazine staff, though. He planned to explore New York City and see how a Jewish man was received.
He encountered anti–Semitic behavior from predictable and not–so–predictable sources. One of the unpredictable ones was his new girlfriend (Dorothy McGuire). Her character, like so many others in the movie — including the magazine's publisher, a crusading liberal who was eager to expose anti–Semitism but wasn't prepared for the revelation that things weren't so squeaky clean in his own domain — talked the talk but didn't exactly walk the walk.
As Peck's character discovered, there are always people who give lip service to racial and religious tolerance but don't apply it to their actions.
Oh, he encountered the usual suspects, the ones you always expect to find — but he almost preferred them. They were honest if misguided. But Peck's character found "[t]he good people, [t]he nice people" to be disappointments.
At one point, for example, one of the minor characters asserted that "some of my best friends are Jewish," which drew a telling response from Celeste Holm, who won Best Supporting Actress: "I know, dear, and some of your other best friends are Methodist, but you never bother to say it."
Holm, by the way, wasn't the only Oscar nominee from "Gentleman's Agreement." Ann Revere, who played Peck's mother, also received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Peck was nominated for Best Actor, and McGuire was nominated for Best Actress.
The movie received Best Picture and Elia Kazan won Best Director.
Jewish actor John Garfield, who played a Jewish friend of Peck's, wasn't nominated — but he, along with other members of the cast and crew (including Revere and Kazan), was brought before the House Un–American Activities Committee. Because his wife was found to be a member of the Communist Party, Garfield, in fact, was brought before the committee twice, was blacklisted, then removed from the blacklist, then put back on it.
There were many who believed at the time that the stress of this experience led to Garfield's death of a heart attack at the age of 39.
