Peggy Taylor (Jeanne Crain) has a big problem - she needs to find an apartment quickly. The people who lent her the place where she and husband Jason (William Holden) have been living are about to return. But there are issues - Jason is attending school on the G.I. Bill, their allotment is barely enough to keep their heads above water, and Peggy is pregnant. So, when it suggested that Professor Henry Barnes (Edmund Gwenn) has an attic that might be suitable, Peggy leaps at the chance to find an Apartment for Peggy (1948). Note the billing on the posters displayed here. This is not William Holden's movie - it belongs to Jeanne Crain and she runs with it. She does an excellent job carrying the film. She portrays Peggy as an independent woman, who speaks her mind and does what she thinks is best. She worked to support her student husband for as long as she could, and now, pregnant and forced out of the workplace (pregnant women were routinely fired - it wasn't considered seemly for a woman who was showing to be out in public, according to employers), she works to keep her husband from losing his drive. Peggy is a character who thinks ahead and outside the box; she hides nothing, not even her pregnancy (which, before 1948, would have been the norm for films). The result is the audience roots for her. (TCM article)
It helps that she has the always wonderful Edmund Gwenn to bounce off. The previous year, Mr. Gwenn had appeared in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) as Kris Kringle. Like that film, Apartment for Peggy was written and directed by George Seaton, but the character Mr. Seaton created for Mr. Gwenn in this film is far different. Professor Barnes is done with life - he's lost his wife, his son (who died in the war), his job (forcibly retired due to his age), and he is about to finish his book. He feels he has nothing to live for, and that his presence on Earth merely uses valuable resources to no purpose. Yet, Mr. Gwenn plays him as facing death matter-of-factly. He is not self-pitying; he is simply finished. The arrival of Peggy shows him that his life's work is not over.
Though not a war movie per se, like The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), the war is a key focus of this film. Prof. Barnes lost his son to a war, Jason still has nightmares about the friends he lost when his ship was sunk and he survived on a raft. The women, too, are victims of the war; their men have changed, and now their ability to get an advanced degree through the GI Bill is widening the gap further.
Peggy obviously worries that she - like her friend Ruth (Marion Marshall) will find her husband straying as the distance in their educational levels increase. So, she arranges for the wives to be tutored. The women eagerly drink in the lectures. They have sharp minds, and only need help in creating a path for their learning. These are not dependents - these are equal partners to their husbands.
I loved that the women arrived with their knitting - and that it is clear that their busy hands increase their ability to listen to the lecture. As a knitter myself, I appreciate it when films show that knitting increases attention; it's a concept that is hard to get across to the non-knitter.
Lee J. Cobb was scheduled to appear as Dr. Philip Conway, the part that eventually went to Griff Barnett. (AFI catalog). Mr. Barnett is fun as the doctor who is trying to prevent his friend from committing suicide, and who is supervising Peggy's obstetrical care. Gene Lockhart is memorable as Professor Barnes' best friend, Professor Edward Bell. Also in the cast is the always enjoyable Charles Lane as Professor Collins, Jason's chemistry teacher. Mr. Lane had a career that started with uncredited performances in 1930 and continued in film and television until 1995. A founding member of the Screen Actor's Guild, Mr. Lane was married for 70 years to his wife Ruth Covell; they had two children. Mr. Lane died in 2007 at the age of 102.
The New York Timesreview by Bosley Crowther was glowing - he called it "one of the best comedies of the year" and "a delightful and thoroughly heartening estimation of the capacities of modern youth." The review from Variety was also positive.
The story (which was originally titled Apartment for Suzie) was used for four radio broadcasts. Lux Radio Theatre, aired it on 28 February 1949 with Jeanne Crain, William Holden, Edmund Gwenn, and again on 4 December 1950 with Ms. Crain and William Lundigan. Versions were also broadcast on the Screen Directors' Playhouse (again with Jeanne Crain) on 2 September 1949 and on 31 May 1951 as part of the Screen Guild Players. We'll close with the scene in which Peggy tries to rent an apartment from Professor Barnes. Do give this delighful film a viewing!
As Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain), Lora May Hollingsway (Linda Darnell), and Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern) are about to leave on a charity boat ride, a young man delivers A Letter to Three Wives (1949). The letter informs them that their "friend", Addie Ross (voiced with just the right amount of venom by Celeste Holm) has left town - with one of their husbands. Unable to leave the boat, the women spend the day worrying about their husbands and reviewing their marriages. Based on A Letter to Fives Wives by John Klempner (the film eliminated two wives, which tightens it up), this is an exceptional film, especially given that it is really a series of vignettes. The use of Addie's narration as a glue to hold together this tale of three marriages in trouble is both inspired and entertaining. That narration brings the tale to a different level, making the film a fully cohesive unit instead of a series of short stories. Two of the stories especially stand out. Rita and George Phipps (Kirk Douglas) are a relatively happy couple, but Rita, a successful radio writer, is trying to have it all - career, husband, and children. She's pretty good at doing it, but George is frustrated that he and their twins often take second place to the demands of her clients (ably represented by Mr. (Hobart Cavanaugh) and Mrs. (Florence Bates) Manleigh). Kirk Douglas plays George as an educated, reasonable and progressive man; he really doesn't mind that his wife works and that she out-earns him by quite a bit. Her job and her impressive salary afford them all a good life, and enable him to pursue his career - an underpaid high school teacher - without guilt. George loves his job and his wife. He just wishes that she wasn't constantly afraid, and would occasional say no to her clients unreasonable demands.
In flashback, we see the courtship of Lora May Finney (Linda Darnell) and Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas). Both are from the wrong side of the tracks (in Lora May's case, quite literally - she lives with her sister Georgianna (Barbara Lawrence) and mother, Ruth (Connie Gilchrist) on the edge of the train tracks). But Porter, the owner of a successful department store, is now well-off, and enamored of Lora May's beauty. But he is not interested in marriage; Porter's been married, and he didn't care for it. Plus, his ideal is Addie Ross - he keeps her picture on his piano, and talks about her "class," a quality he doesn't find in Lora May. Linda Darnell is impressive as the tough talking Lora May. The viewer is quick to realize that, despite her comments to the contrary, she loves Porter. But she knows the only way to keep him is to play the game his way - Porter likes to fight, and Lora May is more than willing to oblige him to get what she wants. To a point, of course. When Porter shows up at her front door, honking his horn for her to come out, Lora May ignores it: "Anybody wants me can come in and get me, this ain't a drive-in." For more on the life of Ms. Darnell, please see our blog post on her work in The Mark of Zorro (1940).
The third story, the marriage of Deborah and Brad Bishop (Jeffrey Lynn) is possibly the weakest of the three. It's not bad, its just that Deborah seems weak next to these two dynamic women. One sympathizes with her truly ugly dress, since we know she's not had time to procure a new one, but really, it is so hideous, it's hard to understand why even a simple farm girl would purchase it. And WHY does Rita have to TELL her to cut off those ugly flowers? But it should be acknowledged that Deborah has left the farm, the WACs, and her past life for a new, more upscale environment with a husband she really doesn't know - the story of Brad and Deborah is a brief glimpse into the marriages that began because of the war. Jeanne Crain began her film career at age 18, with a bit part in The Gang's All Here (1943). Winner of the Miss Pan Pacific pageant, she attracted the attention of film scouts; by 1945, she was starring in State Fair and Leave Her to Heaven. She could sing, dance, ice skate, and she was a pretty good actress, but also in 1945 she married Paul Brinkman, and began having babies - seven in total. She was pregnant during the filming of this movie, and may have lost the role of Eve in All About Eve due to one of her pregnancies. Regardless, her portfolio is quite impressive: I'm particularly fond of Cheaper by the Dozen (1950) and People Will Talk (1951) Ms. Crain and her husband remained married until his death in 2003, but after a messy divorce proceeding (which was never completed), they lived apart. She also lost two of her sons before she died in 2003 of a heart attack at age 78.
We've raved about Thelma Ritter (here playing Sadie Dugan) before, and she does not disappoint in this film. Whether it is her interactions with her pal, Ruth Finney or her sass when she is working as a maid for Rita Phipps, Ms. Ritter is the queen of the bon mot. Take, for example, her response to Rita's request that she wear a uniform: "The cap's out. Makes me look like a lamb chop with pants on." or her answer to the Manleighs about their radio program: "You know what I like about your program? Even when I'm running the vacuum I can understand it." At the same time, it is Sadie who cautions Ruth about her passion for her new refrigerator, when Ruth seemingly puts keeping it (in many respects, for Ruth, the refrigerator is a symbol of respectability) above her daughter's happiness: "
You got to make up your mind whether you want your kids happy or your icebox paid up." A number of different actors were proposed for the film, including both Joan Crawford and Ida Lupino as the voice of Addie Ross (AFI catalog). Though the film was nominated for Best Picture, Screenplay, and Directing Oscars (winning the latter two), no acting nominations came its way. Interestingly, Jeanne Crain, Kirk Douglas, and Celeste Holm were all nominated for other film work that same year (none of them won, however).
Contemporary critics received the film enthusiastically (see this New York Timesreview and this TCM article). Since then, regard for the film has increased, as is evident by this New Yorkerdiscussion, especially as a sophisticated examination of marriage. As Jeanine Basinger notes in her book I Do and I Don't: A History of Marriage in the Movies, films that actually examine marriage itself are rare. A Letter to Three Wives does this, and does it well.
Both Lux Radio Theatre (1950) and Screen Players Guild (1952) performed radio versions of the play. Then, in 1985, the story made its way to television, with Ann Sothern appearing as Ruth Finney in a version which starred Loni Anderson, Michele Lee, Stephanie Zimbalist as the three wives. We'll leave you with a trailer from the film - an introduction to the three wives.
