Philip Schuyler Green, a widowed journalist, comes from California to New York with his son Tommy and his mother to work for Smith`s Weekly, a leading national magazine. John Minify, the publisher, wants Phil to write a series about anti-Semitism, but Phil is lukewarm about the mission. At a party, Phil meets Minify`s niece, Kathy Lacy, a divorced phil who is attracted, and Kathy reminds her uncle that she suggested the series some time ago. Tommy asks his father about anti-Semitism, and when Phil struggles to explain it, he decides to accept the mission. However, he is frustrated by his inability to find a satisfactory approach, as he and Minify want the series to go further than simply exposing the «crackpot» mentality. After trying to imagine how his Jewish childhood friend Dave Goldman, who is now in the military abroad, must feel when he experiences bigotry, Phil decides to write from a Jewish perspective. However, he continues to struggle to write until he realizes that certain things can never be recognized until you experience them first-hand, and that the only way to gain the necessary experience is to appear Jewish in the eyes of others. When Minify announces the series to a lunch group, Phil casually mentions that he is Jewish. Later, Phil learns from his new secretary that he was told there was no job at the magazine when she applied under her real name Estelle Walofsky, but when she applied again with «Ethel Wales,» she got the job. On the first day as a Jew, Phil becomes the target of slander and learns of discriminatory rules at home. When he tells his story to Kathy, whom he fell in love with, she is at first confused that he could really be Jewish. The next day, Minify magazine`s human resources director was reprimanded for his policy of not hiring Jewish secretaries, and was told that any future advertising should include the line: «Religion is a matter of indifference.» However, when Miss Wales learns of the policy change, her fear that a «Kikey» Jew will ruin things for her leads Phil to say that he hates anti-Semitism towards her as much as he hates non-Jewish anti-Semitism. Later, Kathy, to whom Phil is now engaged, tells Phil that her sister Jane in Darien, Connecticut, has planned a party for her next Saturday, and Phil reluctantly agrees to allow Kathy to talk to Jane about the ruse.
When Kathy asks Phil not to talk about anti-Semitism at her sister`s party, Phil refuses and Kathy insults her for her quarrel. Soon after, Dave arrives on vacation in the city looking for a home because he has been offered a job in the area. When Phil tells him about the show and tells him that as a Jew, he «rubbed his nose into it and doesn`t like the smell,» Dave says he`s just not «isolated» yet. Phil and Dave then meet Anne at a restaurant, where a drunk guest calls Dave a «Yid» and Dave forcibly pushes the man away. After that, Phil receives a call from Kathy, who says she is in Connecticut to confront Jane. When Phil arrives at Jane`s party in Darien, he is surprised that the guests are interested in the series, but Kathy does not reveal that Jane has checked the guests and has only invited the «safe». Two days before Phil and Kathy`s wedding, the couple learns from Anne that the Flume Inn where they are planning their honeymoon is «restricted,» meaning Jews are not allowed, but if Phil`s mother has a mild stroke, the wedding is postponed anyway. Dave, unable to find a home, says he has to return to his family and miss the wedding. Upset because he feels dave is being rejected because he is Jewish, Phil goes to the Flume Inn to confront the management.
When he receives evasive answers to his questions, Phil raises his voice angrily and says he is Jewish, which worries some of the guests. Phil returns to Kathy and argues that she should help Dave find a home in Connecticut. When she reveals that the Darien citizens have a «gentleman`s agreement» not to sell to the Jews, Phil castigates her for not wanting to fight. Tommy breaks their argument in tears and says that the children at school called him a «dirty yid» and a «smelly kike». After Kathy tries to comfort the boy by telling him that he was no more Jewish than her, Phil calms his son down and angrily teaches him that she gave Tommy a sense of superiority as a white American Christian. Phil says his biggest discovery was that «nice people» who are not anti-Semitic perpetuate prejudice by not protesting against them. Kathy decides they can`t get married because of Phil`s temperament and leaves despite his apology. That night, Phil tells Dave about Tommy, and Dave says he can stop now that he has learned what it is like when anti-Semitism hits his own children. Phil delivers the first half of the series titled «I Was Jewish for 8 Weeks» and announces that he is returning to California. Meanwhile, Kathy asks Dave to meet her at a restaurant, where she says that earlier that night, a man told a sectarian joke that no one in her group objected to and that she felt bad about it. Dave`s repeated question «What did you do about it?» helps Kathy realize that she got angry with Phil because he expected her to fight, but she should have gotten angry at those who help maintain bigotry.
Dave points out that he has learned to «back off» and that she might not feel sick if she had. When Kathy says she`s not a woman worthy of Phil, Dave claims that a man wants a woman who goes through the hard times with him and feels like it`s the same tough places. Later, Phil`s mother reads his manuscript when Dave arrives and calls his boss to tell him that he has found a house and will accept the job in New York. Dave explains that he will be living in Kathy`s Darien cottage and that Kathy has decided to live with her sister and challenge bigotry there. Delighted that Kathy has changed, Phil kisses her. Japan was willing to limit immigration to the United States, but was deeply hurt by San Francisco`s discriminatory law, which specifically targeted its people. President Roosevelt, who wanted to maintain good relations with Japan as a counterweight to Russian expansion in the Far East, intervened. While the U.S. ambassador was reassuring the Japanese government in February 1907, Roosevelt summoned the mayor and school board of San Francisco to the White House and persuaded them to lift the segregation order, promising that the federal government itself would address the immigration issue. On February 24, the gentlemen`s agreement with Japan was reached in the form of a Japanese note agreeing to deny passports to workers who wished to enter the United States and to recognize the U.S. right to exclude Japanese immigrants who hold passports originally issued in other countries. This was followed by the official withdrawal of the San Francisco School Board`s ordinance on March 13, 1907.
A final Japanese note dated 18 Feb. 1908 rendered the Gentlemen`s Agreement fully effective. The agreement was replaced by the Exclusionary Immigration Act of 1924. The basic elements of Hobson`s work are not only preserved, but in some cases receive more dimension and plausibility. This applies to adaptation, staging and performances. Thus, the first meeting between Phil Green and Kathy is more understandable on the screen than on the printed page. Similarly, the couple`s other scenes, especially the initial love scene, dramatize their irresistible mutual physical attraction that overcomes their violent philosophical disagreements. The bestseller Gentleman`s Agreement was published in Cosmopolitan (November 1946-February 1947) before being published in book form. .