Oscars 1947: Gentlemen's Club

Gentleman’s Agreement brought together Elia Kazan, screenwriter Moss Hart and actors Gregory Peck and John Garfield in the story of a writer pretending to be a Jew in order to experience anti-Semitism in America firsthand. Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck championed the film against the advice of fellow studio heads—mostly Jewish—to not even go near such an incendiary topic. Like Wilson three years before, Gentleman’s Agreement was a pet project of Zanuck’s, and both movies received critical acclaim and multiple Oscars. Wilson, however, flopped at the box office; Gentleman’s Agreement went on to become Fox’s top-grossing film of 1948 and also took the top prize that eluded Wilson—a fact the triumphant but still bitter Zanuck mentioned in his Oscar night acceptance speech. “This makes up for the sharp disappointment I suffered some years ago,” Zanuck said to the audience. “I’m sure I will be forgiven from mentioning the name of the pictures, Wilson, of which I am still proud.”

BEST PICTURE
Gentleman’s Agreement

BEST DIRECTOR
Elia Kazan, Gentleman’s Agreement

BEST ACTOR
Ronald Colman, A Double Life

BEST ACTRESS
Loretta Young, The Farmer’s Daughter

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Edmund Gwenn, Miracle on 34^th Street

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Celeste Holm, Gentleman’s Agreement

July 4

Eva Marie Saint is born in Newark, New Jersey, 1924. She was up against Elizabeth Montgomery for the role of Edie Doyle in On the Waterfront (1954), director Elia Kazan’s landmark drama set in the gritty working class neighborhoods of Hoboken, New Jersey. Eventually, Kazan chose Saint, thereby accepting the challenge of making the 30-year-old actress into a teenager over the challenge of making the 21-year-old Montgomery appear less finishing school and more…Hoboken. Prior to her auspicious movie debut in Waterfront—in a part that won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress—Saint appeared on stage and in various television productions. After her Oscar win, she acted in That Certain Feeling (1956), A Hatful of Rain (1957) and Raintree Country (1957). What followed was the second biggest role of her career, playing opposite Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959). Saint recalled the words of her director: "[Alfred] Hitchcock said, 'I don't want you going back to sink-to-sink movies. You do movies where you wash the dishes looking drab in an apron. The audience wants to see their leading ladies dressed up.' He saw me as others didn't."

Elia Kazan on A Face in the Crowd (1957)

[Andy Griffith] was not an actor, rather a monologist. He was very eager to be good and had none of the defenses that stars usually have. He didn’t want to look a certain way or make a certain impression. There are scenes in the movie that would be difficult for anybody. It’s a very hard part. I think the film walks a very tight line, and I’m not sure it bridges satire and tragedy altogether successfully. We were satirizing the whole scene of public communication. The film was made in 1956, and I think we anticipated a lot of what happened in Nixon’s time and what’s happening today. We tried to satirize it on the one hand and get some sort of human portrait of a man on the other. I would say that considering who Andy was, he gave an excellent performance. I think it would be hard to match.

We started out from a short story by Budd Schulberg about the power and threat of television. We were saying, “Beware of it,” but also that it would be a force for good. I believe that television is a terrific force for good. When you see people in close-up behaving off guard, I think you understand them. That was the case in the McCarthy hearings when McCarthy at one point whispered to Roy Cohn. I don’t think anyone who saw it will ever forget that whisper.