User reviews

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 is a breathlessly talkative expectant mother who lives with her husband, a former soldier, in a trailer; she chances to meet retired professor Edmund Gwenn, who feels his mundane, monotone existence means retreating from this world, but he goes along with her plan to let the couple temporarily move into his attic. The perfect example of what they used to call 'whimsical comedy'; despite a clumsy start, it still seems heartfelt today, perhaps even meaningful. Gwenn conveys the most complex emotions simply by wordless expression, and Crain's exuberance grows on you (she's better though in her quieter moments). With these two front and center, William Holden ends up playing third wheel, yet his solid-but-amiable masculinity is a nice counterpoint to kooky Crain (he also has some fine scenes alone with Gwenn). The gentlemen in Gwenn's musical troupe are all wonderful, and the writing and direction--though primed for audience approval--genuinely work wonders with what might've been a stale set-up. This tearjerker is a true gem. ***1/2 from ****

I watched this twice on cable. I really liked the contrasts. I loved the way the young students respected the professors and elders in general, and co-existed with them -- not just barely tolerated them. Also, just simple common sense was so pleasant to see. No "major plot twists" with contrived "stupidity". By stupidity, I mean the typical, "such as turning your back on a bad guy", or when teens are in a house that has a known killer in it, and the kids decide to split-up to find him, and then get picked off one at a time. Needless to say, there is no "bad guy" or "killer" in this movie, but there are a couple of things that happen, and common sense not only wins out, but was also present from the beginning. Also, the hardship of a housing shortage just after World War II versus the desire for a college education. Despite that obstacle and other obstacles, these "young" adults were adult about overcoming their problems, most of the time. Also, I liked that Peggy established a lecture (series?) for the wives of students when she discovered that many wives felt left out of their husbands lives due to lack of formal education. The women weren't dumb, just hadn't been exposed to the same ideas. And a note to teens of today, yes, there was a time that many students were husbands/men and wives were in a secondary position. I found the movie very uplifting, amusing and well acted.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"Apartment for Peggy" is one of the stranger films I've seen from the late 1940s. This is because it's a mixture of very dark, existential themes AND light comedy! Both aspects of the film work...but not necessarily together in the same movie. This does NOT mean it's a bad film...but choosing one or the other would have probably made for a better film.

Professor Barnes (Edmund Gwenn) is an aging professor who has come to realize his best days are long behind him. As a result, he's considering killing himself...a very dark plot point that is surprising considering the Production Code which normally wouldn't allow this sort of thing.

Around this same time, the Professor meets a very vivacious woman...sort of a force of nature that no one can resist! Peggy (Jeanne Crain) likes the old man and decides to help him...whether he wants it or not. So, she bullies him into renting his attic out to her and her husband (William Holden). After all, they can keep an eye on him AND they can find a nicer place to live. You see, following WWII and the G. I. Bill, vets were given incentives to go to college...but the infrastructure (such as dorms) weren't always available.

Not surprisingly, after a while, Peggy's winning ways manage to get the Professor to care about life once again. But, surprisingly, after it all gets to be 'nice', the story soon turns very dark. How dark? Black hole dark!

As I already said, the film is a comedy AND a dark film about death! Weird is certainly a good way to describe the film...but Crain and Gwenn are so nice in the story that it is well worth watching. Oddly, Holden isn't given all that much to do.

Jeannie Crain (Peggy) "Pinky" '49 and William Holden(Jason) "Sabrina"'54 showed how a young couple with just love in their hearts for each other can overcome all materialistic problems in life and still strive to obtain a college degree. However, they needed the help of Edmund Gweenn, (Professor Henry Barnes)"Miracle on 34th St." '47(Santa Claus) and Gene Lockhart(Prof. Edward Bell),father of Gene Lockhart,who gave excellent supporting roles. If you get a chance to view this film on TV, it is a film to view and enjoy even in the 21 Century, where young people have the same struggles to pay the high costs of getting a simple college education even in the late 1940's.

I've almost always enjoyed the performances of actor Edmund Gwenn. Generally-speaking he was a fun guy to watch and was excellent in comedies. He had a unique voice, too. This was the most unusual role I ever saw him play, and I can't say I appreciated it, although he was interesting, as always.

It was kind of eerie to see him play a man who was contemplating suicide and then attempting to rationalize his act. From a secular viewpoint, some of it made sense. He was through with his job and felt he had done everything he wanted to do in life, so why not end it all before sickness and disease set in? Sounds good on the surface, but is a very selfish outlook, of course. I won't get into the arguments against that here but it would make for interesting discussions.

What turned me off in this film wasn't Gwenn but Jeanne Crain's character "Peggy." She talked non-stop. Puh-leeze....give my ears a break! Maybe that non-stop chatter was supposed to be funny but I found it only one thing: annoying. That yak-yak-yak act wore thin quickly and I would think it would drive anyone crazy. I know it drove me to finally take the tape out of the VCR and tape some other film over it.

In order to appear in Apartment For Peggy William Holden had to get release from both his studio contract masters Columbia and Paramount to appear in this 20th Century Fox film. Being that he was not in either of his home studios Holden took second billing to Jeanne Crain who was at the height of her career as Fox's girl next door. And her part is in fact the title role.

Holden and Crain are a pair of newlyweds, he an ex-GI going to school on the GI bill and looking for a decent place to live as millions of others were in those post war years. A chance encounter with philosophy professor Edmund Gwenn who is contemplating suicide by Crain nets them living space and a good deal more than that.

Gwenn was also good box office at the time being fresh off his Oscar win for Miracle On 34th Street. He's lost both his wife and son and sees little point in living. In his philosophical rational way Gwenn figures he hasn't much to contribute, but Crain shows him that there's a lot he can give.

Holden has one interesting scene that resonated with me telling Gwenn how when he was clinging to a raft in the Pacific and wondering what were the underlying reasons he was there and thereupon decided to learn and become a teacher. That exact thing happened to my professor of Far Eastern history who said that he resolved to learn all he could about the people shooting at him during World War II. I daresay it was an experience shared by many.

Crain's good cheer and peppiness never become maudlin and Apartment For Peggy holds up well for today's audience.

Unsure whether to class this as a drama or a comedy, it's certainly a bit of both.

Jeanne Crain is charming as the fast-talking, statistics-cranking pregnant GI-wife eager for her husband to get his chemistry degree.

This is an enjoyable film, with some snappy one-liners, lots of laughs and great chemistry between the Crain, Holden and Gwenn.

Dougdoepke wrote exactly the review I would have written, only better (hence my review title "Ditto"). Please read it for my reactions.

I rated the film 10 out of 10, though, due to my own personal interest in gender difference issues. This film highlighted and illustrated some of them exquisitely.

Once in a conversation with a female engineer over lunch, I was sharing about my efforts to open cereal boxes, etc., before my husband got to them because he would open the wrong end just tear into the box. She replied, "Oh, it's a 'dick' thing. Even the male engineers lack the patience to read the instructions through before starting to assemble stuff we receive. They always end up with pieces left over that were essential." There's a scene that perfectly plays this out. (I always do the assembling at our house.)

Peggy's perfect long-range view of their future together and her need for a shared vision and shared enthusiasm for that vision is perfectly female. Jason's internal pressure to be a better provider right now perfectly illustrates how money pressures too often distract men from the much more substantive essential of their wives' need to experience a well-discussed shared vision they can pursue together and adhere themselves to, no matter what difficulties arise.

And the young wives' (Peggy in particular) more sound ways of long-range-view reasoning about how to live and why, contrasted against, well, you watch the film and tell me what YOU think. Whether you are male or female, please don't miss these profound (I thought) aspects of this hidden gem of a film. For me, it was definitely a 10. I even located (inadvertently) Jeanne Crain's granddaughter online and emailed to her my reactions and appreciation.

Professor Henry Barnes (Edmund Gwenn) is writing his final book. His life offers nothing else that warrants living. The curmudgeon is counting down his last days when he meets Peggy Taylor (Jeanne Crain), an exuberant, positive-thinking young wife, pregnant with her first child. She mystifies the professor with her younger generation jive, but he is intrigued despite himself. Before he knows it, their lives are intertwined.

Peggy's husband, Jason (William Holden), is a student under the G.I. Bill--dedicated to his goal of becoming a teacher, though there are shorter paths to better money.

The professor's life is anchored in the past, with his nostalgia and memories of his deceased wife. In contrast, Peggy's life is focused on the future, with dreams for her first child and her husband's career. Though the professor's field of study is philosophy, he finds that Peggy is a natural philosopher, focusing on the virtues of tolerance and kindness.

The story, adapted from a novel, is well written. The film packs a lot of ideas into its running time. It's celebration of teaching and learning reminds me of "Born Yesterday", which Holden appears in two years later.

The film has a horrible (and boring) title, but "Apartment for Peggy" might remind some viewers of "It's a Wonderful Life", with its affirmation of life and the value of good deeds.

One year before this film, another Christmas classic, "Miracle on 34th Street", also starred Edmund Gwenn. George Seaton, the director of this film, wrote both films.

This is a Hollywood attempt at 'writing between the lines' regarding the true under-pining of what this movie represented. The owning class did not want some G.I. who just scraped the French mud off him attending college. Yeah, perhaps it was important to beat the Germans and the Japanese but PLEASE do we really have to let them in OUR universities? Even the esteemed educator, Hutchings, objected to G.I. 'invading' his university when, clearly, they were not, 'university material'. This movie shows the struggle the working class had in getting a university education. Actually, it represents a form of bravery that this movie was ever produced. I wonder how it managed to evade HUAC's attention.

-30-

Edmund Gwenn starts the movie off as an old professor who believes he's outlived his usefulness. He sees the new generation and the young people who made it home from the war who need to use the country's valuable resources far more than he does, and so he plans to commit suicide after getting his affairs in order. A pregnant Jeanne Crain and her GI husband William Holden rent his apartment while they readjust to post-war life.

This premise in itself isn't very appealing, but since the old gentleman is played by Edmund Gwenn, it takes an extra turn for the worse. Does anyone really want to see Santa Claus contemplating suicide? I certainly didn't, and I found much of this movie far too depressing to sit through. Since I'm not a William Holden fan, many of the other scenes didn't catch my interest either. One notable aspect of the movie is the appearance of maternity smocks. Up until this point, pregnant women did not display any hint of bump or bulge. Unless you're really dying to see Jeanne Crain in a smock, you don't have to rent this movie.