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.

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.

A charming domestic comedy leavened a bit with some dark shades, which gives the movie a distinctive edge. It uses the post-WWII GI college boom and simultaneous housing shortage as plot points, which may confuse current viewers a bit. Gwenn plays a college professor who is contemplating suicide because he's being forced into retirement. On a chilly winter afternoon while feeding birds on a park bench, he meets up with chatty young Jeanne Crain, wife of GI student William Holden, who tells Gwenn how desperate they are for housing, especially with a baby on the way. Gwenn agrees to put in a good word for her with college administrator Gene Lockhart, and Lockhart decides to place the couple in Gwenn's attic, which Crain re-makes into a cozy little apartment. Of course, Gwenn is a bit cold about the whole thing at first, but eventually he warms to them, agreeing to teach an informal class for the GI wives who don't want to feel left behind by their husbands, and even giving up the idea of killing himself. There are complications: Crain suffers a miscarriage; Holden decides he doesn't want to wait for a degree and drops out to take a job at a used car dealership; Gwenn tries to talk him into coming back to school, and when he thinks he's failed, he returns to his suicidal ways, but all things are put right in the end. Much of the charm of the film is in its details: Crain is forever making up statistics to argue her side of any point; Gwenn cusses by reeling off the names of the books of the Bible; in the one moment that made me laugh out loud, Gwenn tells a bad joke to his class of housewives and Lockhart gives the camera a wonderful split-second reaction. I loved the use of the beautiful Irish song, "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls" in a couple of scenes.

This movie gives a heartwarming story about a young couple who move into an attic of an old man who is contemplating killing himself. The funny thing is that this situation would seem in any other movie to be very melodramatic but it is handled with the utmost care in this movie. Edmund Gwenn is so good in the movie. He was Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street. Jeanne Crain was very refreshing as the wife.