Monday | August 24, 2009 7:00 pm

Gentleman's Agreement

Screening on Film

Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield.
US, 1948, 35mm, black & white, 118 min.
Print source: Academy Film Archive

Fox production chief Darryl Zanuck staked his professional reputation on using an all-star cast— led by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and John Garfield—to deliver a high-minded picture directed against anti-Semitism. Kazan rose to the challenging assignment of adapting celebrated playwright Moss Hart's first screenplay while avoiding didacticism or an oversimplification of the film's subject. Without diluting the message of Gentleman's Agreement, Kazan added psychological depth and nuance by sensitively rendering the wayward paths of an awakening consciousness and the stubborn, unspoken contradictions that frustrate and foster relationships.