--- title: "Gentleman's Agreement" year: 1947 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/gentlemans-agreement" fi1m_score: 64 critics_score: 60 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-20T01:41:09.980969+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T01:41:38.726933+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Gentleman's Agreement (1947) Directed by Elia Kazan · 1h 58m · MPA NR · Drama **Fi1m score: 64** · Critics 60 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* Gregory Peck discovers antisemitism and is nobly upset about it for eight weeks; John Garfield has lived with it and is not surprised > Elia Kazan’s drama about a journalist who passes as Jewish was brave in 1947 and is well acted, above all by John Garfield and Celeste Holm. It is also a lecture, and the woman it asks us to love is the problem it describes. ## Synopsis New York, shortly after the war. Philip Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck), a widowed magazine writer, arrives from California with his mother (Anne Revere) and his young son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) to join the staff of Smith’s Weekly. Its publisher, John Minify (Albert Dekker), wants a series on antisemitism, and Phil cannot find a way into it until he decides to tell everyone he meets that he is Jewish and write down what happens over the next eight weeks. He keeps the secret from almost everyone except his mother, his son and Minify’s niece Kathy Lacy (Dorothy McGuire), the divorcee who suggested the series and with whom he is quickly in love. His army friend Dave Goldman (John Garfield), who is Jewish, is due in the city looking for work and somewhere to live. ## Review Darryl F. Zanuck bought Laura Z. Hobson’s novel, gave it to Moss Hart to adapt and to Elia Kazan to direct, and the result is a Hollywood studio saying out loud, two years after the war, that a good many Americans did not like Jews and that the polite ones were as much the trouble as the loud ones. That took nerve in 1947. It is also a well-acted, well-meant, talkative film that makes its point in the first half hour and then makes it again, at a dinner party, a hotel desk, a doctor’s visit, until we could have delivered the closing speech ourselves. It is worth an evening. It is not the film its reputation said it was. The premise is a reporter’s trick. Phil Green cannot find a way to write about antisemitism until he decides to say he is Jewish and see what changes: a doctor who lets a remark drop, a hotel with no vacancies, a secretary who got her job only after she changed her name. Hart writes it as conversation and Kazan stages it that way, two or three people in a room, medium shot, nobody moving much. When the people are Celeste Holm or John Garfield this is enough. When they are Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire it is not. Garfield is the reason to see it. His Dave Goldman is a Jewish soldier back from the war, tired, amused, looking for a flat, and he plays every scene as a man who has heard all of this before and has stopped expecting it to change. He is on screen for perhaps twenty minutes and nothing in them surprises him. Holm’s Anne Dettrey, the fashion editor who says what she thinks, gets the best lines and throws them away. Anne Revere, as Phil’s mother, is dry and unfooled. June Havoc has one good scene as the secretary and makes it sting. Arthur Charles Miller photographs it cleanly, in the grey light of offices and restaurants, and keeps the camera still; Kazan asks for nothing else. Kay Nelson puts Peck in the same dark suit for most of the picture and dresses McGuire so that we know she has money before she says a word. Alfred Newman’s score comes in under the important speeches to tell us they are important, and the actors were doing that already. The trouble is Phil and, more than Phil, Kathy. Peck plays the reporter as granite, upright to the point of stiffness, and the script gives him little to do but be indignant on other people’s behalf. Kathy is worse. She suggested the series; she is also someone who hears a slur at a party, says nothing, and goes on to lunch. The film knows this. Then it treats her romance with Phil as the story we are meant to care about, and we did not. One scene got past our guard. Tommy comes home from school having been called a name, and Phil, kneeling on the floor, has to explain what the word means and why it is a lie, and Dean Stockwell cries the way children do, in gulps. We were moved. A moment later, when somebody comforts him with the wrong reassurance, we were angry, because the film had shown us what it was about and put it in the mouth of the person we are supposed to love. The prejudice here is the country club kind: a remark, a refused booking, a friend who would rather not. Nobody is hurt. Most critics have come to think this superficial, and the reviews so far are split on it. We would put it more gently: the film picked the fight it could win in a cinema in 1947, and won it, and the fight looks small now. See it for Garfield and Holm, for the boy on the floor, and because somebody made it at all. It runs 118 minutes and carries a U, which is right; it was made to be shown to everybody, and it still talks to us as if we might need it spelled out. *Fi1m score 64, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are divided, and the split is not simply old against new. Most critics respect the film’s seriousness in taking on postwar American antisemitism at all, and the praise gathers around Kazan’s direction and the cast, with Gregory Peck’s journalist and John Garfield’s supporting turn named most often. Those who like it find it still sharp: a riveting drama about everyday prejudice, its outrage landing despite a script that leans towards the pulpit. The reservations gather around that same script. Several critics call the treatment superficial, a lecture rather than a drama, with Paste faulting it for keeping antisemitism at the level of polite social slights and handing the fight to non-Jewish characters. The New Yorker says much the same on release, while Variety in the same week calls it a credit to the screen, so the spread is wide from the start. Later reviews suggest the film has lost its lustre and is rarely revived. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Variety**, Hobe Morrison (90/100, inferred): The film is a brilliant and powerful version of the novel that should repeat its success. It is a credit to the screen thanks to masterful adaptation, strong direction by Kazan, and fine performances, especially by Gregory Peck. [Read](https://variety.com/1947/film/reviews/gentleman-s-agreement-2-1200415194/) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (75/100, inferred): The critic calls it a riveting and high-minded drama about postwar American antisemitism that remains sharp despite its earnestness. He singles out the film's exploration of everyday prejudice through the journalist's undercover experiment and a key confrontation scene for praise. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/15/best-picture-oscar-winners-gentlemans-agreement-1947) - **Slant Magazine**, Chris Cabin (70/100, inferred): The film is a boldly serious, hard-bitten exposé on post-war anti-Semitism whose narrative focus is the strains of performance and masquerade required to confront it. Kazan’s outrage resonates strongly, though the script is mildly preachy. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/gentlemans-agreement/) - **The New York Times** (50/100, inferred): Fifty years on, the once-landmark film on anti-Semitism has lost luster and is rarely revived. It was a major cultural hit in 1947 but now seems compromised despite its bold intent and strong cast. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/16/movies/film-view-over-50-years-a-landmark-loses-some-of-its-luster.html) - **The New Yorker**, John McCarten (30/100, inferred): The treatment of anti-Semitism is superficial and frivolous, better suited to a lecture than a film. Performances are uneven, though John Garfield stands out in one scene. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1947/11/15/1947-11-15-117-tny-cards-000027477) - **Paste**, Jacob Oller (40/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a well-intentioned but overly mild and sanitized message picture that trivializes anti-Semitism by focusing on polite social slights rather than deeper dangers or the Holocaust's context. It praises the boldness of its 1947 release and Garfield's performance while faulting the script for empowering non-Jewish characters to 'fight' prejudice at the expense of Jewish ones. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/anti-semitism/gentlemans-agreement-antisemitism) ## Details - **Director:** Elia Kazan - **Director:** Elia Kazan - **Screenplay:** Moss Hart - **Novel:** Laura Z. Hobson - **Cinematography:** Arthur Charles Miller - **Music:** Alfred Newman - **Costume design:** Kay Nelson - **Producer:** Darryl F. Zanuck - **Cast:** Gregory Peck as Philip Schuyler Green; Dorothy McGuire as Kathy Lacy; John Garfield as Dave Goldman; Celeste Holm as Anne Dettrey; Anne Revere as Mrs. Green; June Havoc as Elaine Wales; Albert Dekker as John Minify; Jane Wyatt as Jane - **Runtime:** 1h 58m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 11 November 1947 - **Genres:** Drama - **Budget:** $2 million - **Box office:** $8 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AR, AT, BE, BR, CL, CO, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IT, MX, NL, PA, PE, PL, PT, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1948: Best Actor (nominated); Best Actress (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated); Best Director (won); Best Picture (won); Best Supporting Actress (won) ## If you liked this - *Crossfire* (1947), Fi1m 77: The same year’s other film about antisemitism, with a murder in it and less patience — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/crossfire.md) - *The Shop on Main Street* (1965): A Slovak carpenter is handed a Jewish shop and slowly finds out what the job is - *School Ties* (1992): A Jewish boy passes as gentile at prep school; the same trick, run the other way - *A Face in the Crowd* (1957): Kazan a decade on, angrier and louder, on television and the men it makes - *Guess Who's Coming to Dinner* (1967), Fi1m 70: Another polite drama about prejudice, with Tracy and Hepburn doing the explaining — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. 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