Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Based on Laura Z. Hobson's best selling novel, Phillip Green (Gregory Peck) poses as a jew to get a behind-the-scenes look at anti-Semitism in America for a series in a newspaper.  As he loses the respect of his believing colleagues, he realizes how even the kindest of people won't stand up against the deep-rooted bigotry and hatred. 

This movie is a pretty good testament to racism/anti-Semitism in New York City after WWII ended.  I guess I wasn't aware how heavily the prejudice had been prevalent in America.  His quest to revealing truth showcases Gregory Peck sending in applications for all sorts of different jobs, colleges, country clubs, apartments, etc.  And even though Peck is just posing as a jew, he gets real mad about it.  Especially when his girl, Kathy, gets pissed about him posing as a jew, then she gets over it, then pissed again, she gets over it...pretty much the whole movie.  "Oh Phil, why can't you give this silly thing up?"  "Oh Phil, I don't care what you are or what you pretend to be!" "Oh Phil, my friends hate jews!" "Phil, I LOVE YOU!"  It's all a little silly.  And while we're at it, I know it's the theme of the movie, but Phil just runs around calling everyone an anti-Semite, even the jews... his Jewish assistant was using the "k" word to describe people who were "more" Jewish than she but still.  After she finds out he's a gentile, he still scolds her for her anti-Semitic views... when he's only dealt with the repercussions of being Jewish for a few weeks and she's dealt with the prejudice, ya know, her whole life... no big.  I really did appreciate this movie and Peck's performance was very good, I had some issues with it.

Like Lost Weekend before it, Gentleman’s Agreement is not necessarily a postwar recovery film but certainly a message film that deals with the fallout effects of such an event. It tackles a subject I wish was no longer relevant, but discrimination and implicit racism are still very much alive and well in the United States and the world over. Featuring the dependable Gregory Peck (I’ve always thought of him as kind of like the American response to Cary Grant and this role clearly makes the blueprint for an even better turn in To Kill a Mockingbird) in an Oscar-nominated performance, Gentleman’s Agreement is always interesting; while not truly revelatory or groundbreaking in the 21^st century, it’s easy to see how this film would have made some ripples in 1947. The film occasionally wanders into melodrama (the first time Peck and female lead Dorothy McGuire make up seems lifted right from daytime soap TV) or preachy territory but without resorting to the constant dramatic speeches that were prevalent in The Life of Emile Zola, an earlier Best Picture winner cut from the same cloth. It was neat to see an early childhood performance from Dean Stockwell, a now-cult actor that would go on to roles in personal favorites like Blue Velvet and the Quantum Leap and Battlestar Galactica (2004) TV series. Director Elia Kazan would make superior films such as the coming-soon-to-this-blog On the Waterfront but Gentleman’s Agreement remains a mostly successful film about a perennial message that I can confidently recommend.

Laura Z. Hobson wrote her novel after Senator John Rankin's anti-Semitic comments were applauded in Congress. It was then serialized in Cosmopolitan from November 1946 to February 1947, immediately causing quite a stir. This prompted Darryl F. Zanuck (who was one of the few studio heads who was not Jewish) to snap up the novel's rights. 

Phil Green: Some people hate Catholics, some people hate Jews.
Tommy Green: And no one hates us because we're Americans. 

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

The Best Years of Our Lives concerns three WWII veterans struggling to reintegrate to their normal lives after returning from the war. Al Stephenson (Frederic March) is promoted to a reputable banking situation but has a hard time performing his duties and being the family man he once was, Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) has no skills for a job outside of a soda jerker and is no longer as appealing out of his uniform to his superficial wife and Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) must face the pity and shock of his family and friends when he returns from the war with hooks instead of hands. Their struggle represents the struggle of a whole generation of Americans returning to a land that feels no longer theirs.

Well, here we go again, it’s another postwar message film. The Best Years of Our Lives is a perfectly fine film but it takes an awfully long time (172 minutes) to convey the “it’s hard to readjust to life after the war” message. To be fair, the film did not feel that long and the acting and music are very strong, but it passes to the realm of distant memory almost immediately after it’s over. It’s kind of like diet Born on the Fourth of July. Harold Russell’s performance in particular is surprisingly very strong considering he was a real war veteran and not an experienced actor. The film also includes an always-welcome appearance from the great piano player Hoagy Carmichael, famous for composing the music for several classics including “Georgia On My Mind” and for his appearance in To Have and to Have Not, the film with the first on-screen pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The Best Years of Our Lives is actually a very good film with a lot going for it- it just did very little for me after a steady diet of thematically too-similar Best Picture winners, including director William Wyler’s own Mrs. Miniver. I’m looking forward to at least a few non-war Best Pictures in the years ahead…

I agree with Tim.  The thing that set these apart from the other war movies is the character Homer, who is left with hooks for hands.  His performance is remarkable.  His acting, like Tim said, is quite wonderful but I am so impressed with his ability to do everyday activities with his disability.  He shoots a gun in the film and the most impressive is when he played the piano with Hoagy Carmichael!  Very cool!  It was heart and soul but he played it with flair!  I felt like this was the perfect movie to blog about during Veteran's Day.  It very adequately describes the pains of coming home from war to changed world, where everything is almost the same and yet, everything is different.  The soldiers come home with PTSD, alcoholism, physical and mental impairments, and of course the ungrateful wife who leaves her husband when he gets a job as a soda jerk.  It was a good movie and there really were fantastic moments, it just wasn't the best 172 minutes of our lives... see what I did there?

For his performance as Homer Parrish, Harold Russell became the only actor to win two Academy Awards for the same role. The Academy Board of Governors thought he was a long shot to win, so they gave him an honorary award "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance." Later that ceremony he won for Best Supporting Actor. 

Al Stephenson: You know, I had a dream. I dreamt I was home. I've had that same dream hundreds of times before. This time, I wanted to find out if it's really true. Am I really home? 

The Lost Weekend (1945)

Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend chronicles the four-day bender of alcoholic Don Birnam, a troubled writer that has lost his inspiration. After ten days on the wagon, Don dodges a weekend getaway with his brother Wick to stay at home with a bottle tied to his window. Don recalls the events leading up to the present to his bartender- he steals, lies and sells his things for booze money until he winds up in the alcoholic ward at a hospital, witnessing many that are just like him… or worse. After being sent home, he teeters on the razor’s edge of choosing life or deciding that there is nothing left to lose.

After the postwar hope-amidst-hardship messages of the last several Best Picture winners, The Lost Weekend is a pretty ballsy but sensible move. After all, this story was a reality for many drug-addled PTSD war veterans with little hope of real employment and a refuge in crime and cheap liquor. In the tradition of Leaving Las Vegas or Requiem for a Dream, this film is less a linear story and more of a dreamlike character study into desperation and even madness; one particular hallucination scene of a bat eating a mouse from the wall had a shock value reminiscent of the baby scene in Trainspotting. Even the music in this film sounds more like something from a spooky sci-fi movie, as if to suggest that the threat behind The Lost Weekend is similar in scariness but much more tangible and real. I have grown to absolutely love the films of Billy Wilder, especially Some Like it Hot and the near-perfect Sunset Boulevard. While Weekend was likely an intense and outstanding movie for it’s time, it loses power and credibility with a very neatly tied-up “I beat alcohol, and you can too!” ending that seems to endorse that a person can just choose not to drink after being coaxed enough by a pretty girl. Sure, Birnam may decide to keep his typewriter today but he’ll be out trying to sell it again tomorrow. This break from the tone and trivialization of the conflict brings this film down a few pegs and keeps it from greatness. Still, it has to be respected for being the brave pioneer that allowed many of the aforementioned films to happen.

Yeah, this movie had some good moments.  And then it had some bizzare-o moments.  Like when Don falls down some stairs.  He basically just falls.  No one pushes him.  One minute he's standing, the next he's at the bottom of the stairs and then he passes out.  He's sent to an alcoholic ward.  It's kind of like celebrity rehab... but Lindsey Lohan wouldn't be caught dead there.  Bim, the nurse who takes care of Don, is not very supportive.  He constantly tells Don how he'll be seeing him soon, since he's an alkie.  I mean, that's probably the last thing I want to hear from my nurse.  Not super compassionate... but I guess that's really NOT the point of the movie.  One of my favorite lines in the movie was when an old girlfriend of Don's yells at him for asking for money.  She says, "Don't be ridic!" aka abbrevs for ridiculous... that was hilarious.  Concordia would be sad to know they weren't the first to implement abbrevs.  Not by a long shot.  Like Tim said about the end, weird and abrupt... not that we would've wanted a morbid ending but it just seemed like a cautionary tale where a guy was drunk but then he wasn't... The End.  (Sounds like college to me.) 

Billy Wilder claimed the liquor industry offered Paramount $5 million to not release the film; he also suggested that he would have accepted, had they offered it to him.

Nat: One's too many an' a hundred's not enough.