"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.
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.