1940's: Decade in Review

So, two whole decades (and two years in the 1920's) of Best Pictures are reviewed and in the bag. Confession time--I'm way, way ahead in terms of watching the Best Pictures. I just re-watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (good movie) last night, and will start the review of All About Eve (fucking great movie) today, which puts my viewing schedule a full 25 films ahead of what I am reviewing.

I look forward to writing about the 1950's Best Picture collection. There decade is basically divided into some of the finest films to ever be awarded the Best Picture Oscar, and easily at least three of the absolute worst. The common factor between most of these films: the advent of television, and how it affected the viewing habits of filmgoers.

As for the 1940's--it was a decade of very good Best Picture winners, one of which is in my opinion, the absolute best film to be awarded the Oscar. Overall, the ten films are much more mature than the batch of films from the 1930's, which is no surprise, given that half of the decade was spent under the shadow of WWII. No less than four of the films in the decade deal with the war at least peripherally. The 1940's Oscar winning films also displayed a strong sense of social consciousness, as filmmakers used the power of their medium to confront social issues their audiences faced daily.

That said, here's how I'm ranking the 1940's Oscar winners:

1. Casablanca (1943): Bogart, Bergman, one of the finest supporting casts ever assembled, one of the greatest and most quotable scripts ever written, and a love story for the ages. "As Time Goes By", Casablanca only gets better.

2. The Lost Weekend (1945): Billy Wilder and his star, Ray Milland, present a terrifying, effective, and altogether unflinching portrait of a man stricken with alcoholism. one of the best social issues pictures ever made, and only one of two films to win both the Best Picture Oscar and the Palme D'Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

3. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946): Director William Wyler and cinematographer Gregg Toland nurture compassionate performances in this melodrama about three servicemen returning home from WWII and accepting the changes in their lives.

4. Rebecca (1940): Alfred Hitchcock's masterly creepy thriller about an unnamed woman who must contend with the ghost of her husband's former wife. The film hints at what themes Hitchcock would develop in the next two decades.

5. Mrs. Miniver (1942): William Wyler's effective piece of propaganda encouraging America to help on the European front of WWII by showing the effects of the war on an upper-middle class British family. Greer Garson is magnificent in the title role.

6. How Green Was My Valley (1941): John Ford's film is unfairly maligned because it beat out Citizen Kane for Best Picture, although the films surprisingly share many themes. A nostalgia filled weepie about a Welsh mining family as told through the eyes of its youngest member.

7. Hamlet (1948): Director/star Laurence Olivier's adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy is the first non-American production to win best picture. The adaptation of Hamlet is uneven but proved to be very influential.

8. Gentleman's Agreement (1947): Elia Kazan's drama about anti-Semitism is a little more concerned with its message instead of character to be truly effective.

9. All the King's Men (1949): This drama about a corrupt Louisiana politician has lost its edge when compared with the political scandals seen in real life over the past forty years. A masterful supporting role from Mercedes McCambridge is the standout performance.

10. Going My Way (1944): Total fluff from director Leo McCarey and star Bing Crosby. Imagine if the Whoopi Goldberg film Sister Act won Best Picture. A funny and entertaining film, to be sure, but Oscar material? I don't think so. The same line of thinking should have applied here.

Actor of the Decade: Humphrey Bogart. His Rick Blaine is an iconic American role. Bogart also turned in the finest work of his career in the decade. Runner-up: Laurence Olivier.

Actress of the Decade: Greer Garson. Red-headed Garson brings a magnificent beauty and humanity to her role as Kay Miniver. She was also nominated for five consecutive Oscars in the decade, making her the Meryl Streep of her era. Runner-up: Ingrid Bergman

Director of the Decade: William Wyler. Can't argue with two Best Director Oscars in two Best Picture winners over a span of four years. Wyler, with Mrs. Miniver and The Best Years of Our Lives, made two very excellent films that bookended the central conflict of the 1940's, WWII. Runners-up: Billy Wilder, then Michael Curtiz

Studio of the Decade: Warner Brothers. There is relative parity amongst the studios of the Oscar winning films of the 1940's. MGM dominated the 1930's (and will dominate the 1950's), but nine different studios would produce Oscar winners. 20th Century Fox delivered two--How Green Was My Valley and Gentleman's Agreement--but those two pictures don't even come close to adding up to Casablanca, which is the greatest film to ever be entirely shot in a studio. WB for the win.


NEXT BLOG: All About Eve

Gentleman's Agreement: The Importance of Being Not Too Earnest

The award magnet films of the late 1940’s were all films concerned with issues of social justice, and confronted audiences about everyday evils. The Lost Weekend tackled alcoholism. The Best Years of Our Lives reminded audiences that returning WWII veterans needed compassion upon their return to the homefront. Gentleman’s Agreement paints a big, fat target on anti-Semitism. Any film that targets a social issue always runs the risk of forgetting about character in favor of the message. Like its Oscar-winning predecessors, Gentleman’s Agreement is an honorably intentioned, earnest picture. However, the film is not as successful at balancing its social message with crafting compelling characters through superior filmmaking.

The film was adapted from a best-selling novel of the same name by Laura Z. Hobson. 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, acquired the rights to the novel and hired Elia Kazan to bring the adaptation to filmic life. The film was born of good intentions. Zanuck was denied entry into the exclusive Los Angeles Country Club because it was assumed—incorrectly—that he was Jewish, like nearly all of his contemporaries were. Shorty thereafter, Zanuck purchased the rights to Hobson’s novel, and he was immediately faced with pressure to not make the film. Samuel Goldwyn (who won the Oscar in the previous year for his own socially conscious picture, The Best Years of Our Lives), himself Jewish, told Zanuck that he would only “stir up trouble” if Gentleman’s Agreement was made.

Another argument cited as a reason to not make the film was risking offending the Hays Code—the rigid censorship guidelines that all Hollywood films were expected to adhere to. Joseph Breen, the head enforcer of the code, was known to make anti-Semitic remarks, and producers were particularly fearful of incurring his wrath. Spurred on by witnessing the hypocrisy in the filmmaking community, Zanuck felt even more compelled to bring Gentleman's Agreement to the screen. With respected stage director Kazan at the helm, Zanuck felt confident his picture and its message would resonate with American audiences.

The story of the film concerns a journalist named Philip Green (Gregory Peck) who is writing for a magazine called Smith’s Weekly (in the mold of publications such as The New Yorker). A recent widower, Green has moved to New York from California with his young son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) and his mother (Anne Revere) in tow. Phil struggles with finding a great subject to write about. His publisher, John Minify (Albert Dekker), suggests he write a piece about anti-Semitism, and while Phil feels the subject is worth reporting on, he cannot think of a fresh angle in which to approach it.

Sometime later, Tommy asks his father what prejudice is, and Phil is at a loss to give his son a satisfactory explanation. Inspired in part by wishing to explain prejudice to his son, and also in honor of his childhood friend Dave (John Garfield), a Jew serving in the Army, Phil accepts the assignment. His approach to the material is to go undercover as a Jew to truly sympathize with what he doesn’t understand (the notion of “putting on someone else’s shoes and walking around in them for a little bit” is a sentiment espoused by the character Peck would become most famous for playing fifteen years after Gentleman’s Agreement—Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird—and was a common denominator in the roles that defined Peck’s career).

Subsequently, Phil begins a romance with Kathy Lacy (Dorothy McGuire)—Minify’s niece, who initially suggested that her uncle publish an expose of anti-Semitism in Smith’s Weekly. Kathy comes from an affluent community in Connecticut, where there is a “gentleman’s agreement” in place where the local realtors have a policy of not selling or renting to Jews. Though the extent of Kathy’s upbringing is not revealed until later in the film, Kathy is confused when Phil tells her about his controversial angle to his story—she is worried that Phil may actually be Jewish and has been keeping it a secret from her. Phil has gone a bit Method in his undercover act, adopting the last name “Greenberg” for not only himself but his son. His co-workers are even in the dark about his true identity, and like Cathy, have their prejudices quickly exposed. However, Anne Dettrey (Celeste Holm), the fashion editor at the magazine, supports Phil.

Anne, in the film’s most subtly developed subplot, becomes Phil’s closest confidante. She is one of the few people Phil can turn to when he experiences racism—like when he is called “yid” at a restaurant or faces discriminatory rules in his own apartment building. Conversely, as Phil and Kathy develop their romance, her sly bigotry is revealed. One example of how Phil’s adopted identity reveals Kathy’s ignorance is in a scene where Tommy comes home from school, the victim of anti-Semitic slurs and beaten up. When Tommy cries that he was called “a dirty yid” and a “stinking kike”, Kathy tells him the words should mean nothing to Tommy because he isn’t really a Jew. This incenses Phil—who thinks that Kathy should be saying the slurs are wrong in and of themselves. He also feels that Kathy is instilling a sense of Christian superiority in Tommy by telling him this, and that “nice people” like Kathy are sustaining anti-Semitic attitudes when they espouse Christian superiority instead of railing against the hateful remarks. Kathy also makes apologies for the anti-Semitic behaviors of her sister and the other members of her hometown in Connecticut when Phil wants her to take a stand. A deep part of the film’s message is to show how when the so-called good guys remain apathetic to bigotry, it only ripens an environment where bigotry is tolerated.

In that regard, I love how Gentleman’s Agreement is direct about that message. It’s far easier to demonize Nazis, Klansmen, cross-burners, lynch-mobs and other token racists in film than to suggest that ordinary, decent white Christians are equally condemned if they don’t use their privilege to eradicate bigotry. On the other hand, the messages in the film play less like natural character developments and more like a sensitivity training video.

Other scenes go as follows:

• Phil’s secretary Ethel (June Havoc)—a Jew who can pass as Gentile because of her fair skin and blonde hair—discloses that she originally applied to the magazine under her real, more traditionally sounding Jewish name, Estelle Walofsky, but was told that there were no open positions. When she applied as “Ethel Wales”, she got the job. Phil brings this to the attention of Mr. Minify, who promptly changes the company hiring policy to being “religion is a matter of indifference.” When told of the change, “Ethel” crows that more “kikey” Jews could ruin things for her at the magazine.
• At the engagement party for Phil and Kathy planned by Kathy’s sister Jane, Kathy warns Phil not to discuss the topic of anti-Semitism. Jane tells Kathy that she screened the guest list to only include the “safe ones”—people who are less overtly anti-Semitic—to specifically avoid any uncomfortable conversations. When Phil is surprised by the progressive attitude of the guests, Kathy does not disclose that the guest list was screened.
• When Kathy is with Dave at a restaurant, she tries to defend herself against Phil’s accusations of bigotry. Kathy tells Dave that at a dinner party she attended, a man told an anti-Semitic joke that nobody in her party objected to, and that it made her feel ill to hear in. Dave asks her, “What did you do about it?” He reinforces the idea that Kathy can’t simply feel ill when someone tells a hurtful joke, she has to speak up and out against it.

These are all scenes straight out of Sensitivity Training 101. I feel the script is well-intentioned, but it cares more about hitting its talking points instead of letting the characters dictate the action. I especially think the end of the film—where Phil forgives Kathy and resumes their engagement—is especially discrediting. I buy that Dave’s talk with Kathy opened her eyes to her own bigotry, but I don’t buy that the crusading Phil falls in love with her again simply because she promises to change. Kathy is never shown standing up to her sister, or telling off someone using an anti-Semitic slur. No visual evidence is given that Kathy has changed. I don’t buy it, especially given that Anne has been supportive of Phil throughout his assignment, and she is someone who uses her privilege to right anti-Semitism (the fact that the stunning Celeste Holm is about ten times more beautiful than the plain Dorothy McGuire doesn’t help, either). Not only do the film’s talking points play like a laundry list, the changes in the characters’ attitudes are made simply to give the Phil/Kathy romance the typical Hollywood happy ending.

I don’t think the noble failure of Gentleman’s Agreement lies at the fault of Elia Kazan or his actors. I do think that 20th Century Fox wanted to make a film that would aggressively court controversy. Zanuck was well intentioned in wanting to make the picture, but he was so wrapped up in the message that he wanted to bring to audiences that the film ends up preaching to us, instead of letting the audience grow and change along with the characters. In many ways Gentleman’s Agreement is so earnest that its message is not as effective as it could be.

However, Gentleman’s Agreement was a huge hit for Fox and held both popular and critical acclaim. Message pictures were big business in 1947, and maybe audiences actively wanted a film to bash them over the head with a socially conscious message. Kazan would fare much better seven years later, when he made an indelible message film in On the Waterfront, a work that certainly puts character first—and is all the more effective for doing so—when putting its lesson across.

The film also had unintended political consequences. Gentleman's Agreement significantly raised the profiles of Kazan, Zanuck, John Garfield, and Anne Revere; each of whom were called to testify in the hearings on anti-Communism held by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. Kazan and Zanuck made deals (Kazan infamously so, and many see On the Waterfront as his apology), but Garfield and Revere—both of whom refused to testify—landed on the Hollywood blacklist. Revere didn’t work as a film actress for twenty years, and Garfield died of a heart attack at age 39 shortly before his wife was called upon to testify a year later.

I don’t think Gentleman’s Agreement should have tempered its stance on anti-Semitism, especially in holding privileged WASP’s culpable for their complacency. I like how incendiary it is. Yet if the characters in the film were as memorable as the message (there’s a reason why Terry Malloy is a classic film character and Phil Green isn’t), Gentleman’s Agreement could have been a classic for all time instead of an obscure Oscar-winner.


DETAILS

Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

Director: Elia Kazan

Starring: Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, Celeste Holm, John Garfield, Anne Revere, Dean Stockwell, Albert Dekker, June Havoc

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Total Oscars: 3 (Best Picture, Best Director—Elia Kazan, Best Supporting Actress—Celeste Holm) out of 8 total nominations (Best Actor—Gregory Peck, Best Actress—Dorothy McGuire, Best Supporting Actress—Anne Revere, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing)


NEXT: Hamlet