Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

The opening scenes are of Gregory Peck with ten- or eleven-year-old Dean Stockwell as his son. They filmed the master shots on the streets of New York and the dialogue in the studio in front of rear screen projections. It worked very well. It was reportedly less apparent that they did it this way before high definition video.

Gregory Peck as a journalist assigned the task of writing a series on anti-Semitism. It will be called "I was a Jew for Six Months". They couldn't just have a Jewish guy write it? 

"I've been having my nose rubbed in it and I don't like the smell."

In an early scene, Peck has to explain to Dean Stockwell what anti-Semitism is. He says that some people hate Catholics, some hate Jews.

"And nobody hates us because we're American," his son observes.

"Uh, well, no."

Peck is thrown out of an expensive hotel, his son is harassed by Jew-hating children, he learns from his secretly Jewish secretary that the liberal magazine he works for doesn't hire Jews, and his girlfriend, Dorothy McGuire, tolerates anti-Semitism among her callous, bourgeois friends.

I first saw this when I was in high school. A couple of years later, when I saw Caddyshack, I got it when Rodney Dangerfield told his Asian friend, "I hear this place is restricted, Wang, so don't tell them you're Jewish."

With John Garfield. Sam Jaffe as a Professor Lieberman. They mention Palestine and Zionism in passing without noting any irony. Dean Stockwell was amazing as a child actor.

Free on The Criterion Channel.