Apartment for Peggy

I'll be honest... my Fall Sundays are spent watching football. So when our hometown NFL team, the only game allowed to be televised at that time, began to stink more than our cat's litter box left for a couple of weeks, I flipped over to TCM. This movie was starting so I figured I would watch it. I did not expect much, but after a few minutes I was pleasantly surprised! The movie is based on a serious problem faced by so many of our soldiers and their families after WWII. This movie looks at the serious problems of family housing at universities across the country who were all too eager to collect the GI Bill money from them. Jeanne Crain plays the part of an enthusiastic wife of a student wonderfully. She is so amusing, yet serious when needed. William Holden is great as the ex-GI, student, and Father-to-be, struggling to give his family a great future while trying to survive the present. Edmund Gwenn has another great performance. I'm so glad my NFL game was a bust, or I would have missed this great movie.

George Seaton's "Apartment for Peggy" was a surprise that was shown on cable recently. This 1948 film is a wonderful reminder of how Hollywood used to make comedy by taking amazing talent out of a pool of superb cinema actors. The film is based on a Faith Baldwin novel, which the director adapted for the screen.

"Apartment for Peggy" tackles the problem the housing shortage right after WWII. We are taken to a college town where some students are feeling the pinch and must adapt to whatever they could get from meager accommodations. It's this way how Peggy, a young pregnant wife of a student at the university, comes upon an attic apartment that Prof. Henry Barnes didn't even remember he had. Prof. Barnes wants to commit suicide, so Peggy, and her husband Jason, are in his way to accomplish the task. Prof. Barnes feels old and left out, when in reality, he has so much to give, not only to his newly found tenants, but to the community where he lives as well.

Delightful performances by the cast was what George Seaton got from everyone. Edmund Gwenn makes an impression as Prof. Barnes. Mr. Gwenn was a man that went to enhance all the films in which he appeared. Jeanne Crain is the Peggy of the title; a beautiful woman in the prime of her youth. It was obvious the camera adored her. William Holden made a likable Jason. Gene Lockhart is excellent, as always, but we didn't expect anything short of greatness out of him, or the rest of the cast.

"Apartment for Peggy" will delight anyone looking for a good time watching this film.

JEANNE CRAIN was at the height of her appeal as a demure charmer at Fox, just beginning to be more than a pretty face as far as her acting career was concerned. And here she had two splendid co-stars: WILLIAM HOLDEN as her ex-G.I. hubby and EDMUND GWENN as a little retired professor who has some housing space in his attic. When Crain finds out about the available space (during the big housing shortage at the time), she convinces Gwenn to rent the apartment to the young married couple.

From there, the plot takes a few steps beyond that bare outline, always throwing a positive outlook at women who want to better themselves with an education as well as the G.I.s entitled to do so under the G.I. bill.

Gene Lockhart, Griff Barnett and Betty Lynn fill the supporting roles amiably and it's probably Jeanne Crain's best film of that period, following her enormous success as MARGIE two years previously.

Behind the misleadingly sappy title lies one of the decade's most positive and humorously enriching films. On the surface, the story is about the post-war housing shortage and the difficulties returning vets had in trying to start a family in old trailers, quonset huts, or whatever lodging could be slapped together. Peggy (Jeanne Crain) is a charmingly spunky newly-wed whose husband (William Holden) is in college on the GI Bill. There she meets stodgy old professor (Edmund Gwenn) and tries to talk her way into making his attic a new home for the couple and their expected baby. The trouble is Gwenn has turned his big old house into a mausoleum in tribute to his dead wife. Now he lives alone, in despair. Having completed his life's work he sees no further point in living and thus looks forward to suicide. In the process, however, he fails to factor in the life-affirming powers of youthful zest, old-age wisdom, and the wonderfully spirited Peggy.

What a fine piece of obscure film-making, from scripter-director George Seaton and the cast of three principals, though Crain is a bit much at times. The film must have cost about 50 bucks to make since nearly all the scenes are indoors, but seldom has movie-making money been better spent. Beneath the post-war plot, there's a parable about generational sharing in which each age group brings uniquely enriching benefits to those around them. Thus, Peggy brings hope, joy, and a real home to the others, while husband Holden, though sometimes wayward, brings dedication, hard work, and finally a sense of real values. And as the ivory-tower professor, Gwenn contributes from the wisdom of the ages, but also finds that true philosophical thinking lies not on the dead pages of old books, but can also be found in the unlikeliest of places-- in a launderette full of seemingly empty-headed young wives. That superbly humane scene alone is worth the 90 minutes of watching.

A movie like this could have gone off-track in so many places. The material alone might easily have slid into the sort of tear-jerking treatment that would send me running for the off-button. But never do the on-screen results descend to a sappy level. Instead Seaton and Co. maintain a consistently light and intelligent touch throughout, even during the darker passages. In fact, they accomplish one of the most difficult of all challenges inside an industry where cynicism is the norm and sneering is the response to any hint of idealism. To its great credit, the film actually makes us feel that beneath our differences, something like a harmonious human community may exist after all, as the wonderfully metaphorical last scene suggests. I expect a little project like this with its unfortunate title passed quickly into movie oblivion. However, now more than ever, Apartment for Peggy needs rediscovery. For its well-delivered message is truly trans-generational.

An Apartment for Peggy is a surprise for anyone who comes across it---and that seems to be the only way it is re-discovered again and again. Jean Crain is a marvel and so is Edmund Gwenn and the two have many wonderful scenes together. Crain's snappy, slang-laden talk with Gwenn's resigned philosophic thoughtfulness is delightful. When they realize other post- war wives putting their husbands through college fervently desire education themselves, Peggy and the Professor organize a lecture series at the only available location---a pool hall. The way the scene unfolds, with the Professor leading the discussion of philosophy, and then the women taking over with a spirited debate of ideas is one of the best and sadly a singular occasion that shows women in this kind of intellectual exchange. It is what the recent movie Mona Lisa hoped for but failed to bring to life. And the other plot lines---research in chemistry at Harvard, with William Holden, a former chemistry-major in his first role; the difficulties of miscarriage and medicine (folic acid); and the strong bond of 'family' that developed due to unusual configurations of folks thrown together by the housing shortage; the struggles of loneliness and suicide, all are dealt with in a fresh and fascinating way. This film is one that is great to see again and find new things to appreciate and we can only hope it will be transferred to DVD someday very soon.