Taboo of the righteous

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Movie
German title Taboo of the righteous
Original title Gentleman's Agreement
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1947
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Elia Kazan
script Moss Hart
production Darryl F. Zanuck
music Alfred Newman
camera Arthur C. Miller
occupation

Taboo of the Righteous is a film from 1947 . The original title is Gentleman's Agreement . Directed by Elia Kazan and starring Gregory Peck , Dorothy McGuire and John Garfield . The film is based on the novel - bestseller Gentleman's Agreement by Laura Z. Hobson from 1947 and has been very controversial in its time.

action

Phil Green comes to New York City as a successful journalist from the West Coast to work for a major magazine. His boss gives him the job of writing a series about anti-Semitism . The widower Green, who lives with his young son Tommy and his mother, falls in love with Kathy Lacey, his boss's niece. She is divorced, but soon gives in to his bidding and would like to move into her house with him, which is in Darien, Connecticut . Green has problems taking on the new task and finally comes up with the idea of ​​posing as a Jew and reporting on his experiences. To this end, he renames himself Greenberg. At his new job, a secretary is assigned to him who explains that she is Jewish, but has changed her Jewish-sounding name to keep the position. After Phil informs his boss of this confession, the latter changes the employment guidelines in favor of Jewish applicants. There is tension and a break between Phil and Kathy, whose superficial tolerance becomes apparent. Dave Goldman, an old friend of Phil, visits; he was an officer in the US Army but has now been offered a job in New York. Of course, he can only accept this if he finds an apartment. Kathy realizes that she can only win Phil back if she proves her tolerant attitude through action. She makes her house in Darien available to Dave Goldman and promises to protect him from all hostility there. Phil then returns to Kathy.

rating

Gentleman's Agreement was the first Hollywood film to deal with the topic of anti-Semitism. Kazan didn't particularly like the film. He is too polite and does not show how bad anti-Semitism is. However, by focusing on the latent anti-Semitism of seemingly liberal and outwardly more tolerant people and ultimately convicting them of cowardice, the film analyzes it much more finely than the depiction of brutal and direct racism could have. From a German point of view it seems strange to see a film about anti-Semitism in the USA from 1947 in which the Holocaust - which admittedly did not have this name at the time - is not mentioned with a word or picture. The parallels to the anti-Semitism that also exists in Germany, which considers itself liberal and tolerant, are striking.

Reviews

  • "Elia Kazan is committed to denouncing social grievances, although his film loses its sharpness due to the optimistic (and seemingly artificial) ending, but without losing any of its seriousness and significance." - " Lexicon of international film " (CD-ROM- Edition), Systhema, Munich 1997
  • "A film by Elia Kazan, made in 1947, despite some superficialities, an overly optimistic ending and cinematic weaknesses of the topic because of its worth seeing and above all worth considering." - Protestant film observer , review No. 211/1964

Awards

DVD release

  • Taboo of the righteous . Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment 2007

literature

  • Laura Z. Hobson : Gentleman's agreement. A novel . [Reprint.] Larlin Corp., Marietta 1979, 275 pp., ISBN 0-89783-010-5 (so far no German translation exists)
  • Hans-Jürgen Kubiak: The Oscar Films. The best films from 1927/28 to 2004. The best non-English language films from 1947 to 2004. The best animated films from 2001 to 2004 . Schüren, Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-89472-386-6

Web links

Commons : Gentleman's Agreement (film)  - collection of images, videos and audio files