Apartment for Peggy

I enjoyed the actress Jeanne Crain in a few films and this one was in the library. It also stars William Holden, whose lighter touch was seen in films like this and Born Yesterday.  Edmund Gwenn, who played Kris Kringle in Miracle On 34th Street rounds the cast as a depressed professor who gains new life from the energy of the young couple.  

Crain's yakker routine gets a bit annoying though later we get a sense it is a type of cover for a more serious side.  The opening shows how the GI Bill guarantees both education and suitable housing.  The film has a message amongst its breeziness, including the value of education.  The husband sees ignorance as a basic problem in the world. The wife says we need to start solving problems somewhere, probably when people are very young.

A nice touch is when Crain's character has a friend whose husband might be tempted by a fellow student because she is someone he is more able to talk to about his studies.  So, Crain talks the professor into helping to provide the wives with some education to help them be familiar with the subjects.  And, the wives really get into the joy of philosophy.

The film was pleasant enough but like a Hallmark film, I noticed it was about an hour in and there were thirty or so minutes left. So, surely, there was going to be a complication.  Sure enough.  After some amusement about the problem of putting together something "a child could," the pregnant wife has to go to the doctor.  Perhaps, a premature baby (dangerous in 1950, but late enough to survive the scare.

No.  The doctor, just bluntly, tells the husband and professor that she's okay but the baby is dead.  No soft landing.  Now, the film was not totally fluffy.  The professor at the beginning was contemplating suicide because he was old and tired, and his life was no longer fulfilling.  But, you figure our charming Peggy healed his wounds.  I am unsure how some viewers took the rather out-of-left-field bit of tragedy here.

I found the sudden nature of it a bit hilarious in the sudden shift of tone. The audience might not have expected it.  They did experience their share of death and hardship, the film was released a few years after World War II. And, many more women in that era also "lost" (silly term) their babies by miscarriages or early deliveries that went wrong.  

It worked out okay in the end.  The husband had a crisis of faith about the sacrifices they would have to make for him to be a student and academic.  The professor talks some sense into him.  The grumpy chemistry professor who was riding him turned out to be okay when he went back to make up his work.  (Yes, he's the grumpy train employee on Petticoat Junction).  

And, the wily doctor [not "the baby is dead" guy] replaced the professor's sleeping pills with placebos of some sort, so when he thought the couple was going to leave him and took them, nothing bad happened either.  All seems to have gone okay.  I don't know if she was serious about having "nine children," but the first one would be around as old as the professor now.  

William Holden bringing up the guy's son (who died in "the war") was a bit bunch when HE gave the professor a lecture about responsibilities.  But, the doctor previously comparing the new generation to Adam and Eve, each generation having their own tempting apples, was a good bit.  

Overall, I liked the film, and it had a good mix of material, well acted, and technically was good as well.