Peyton Place

The Hollywood melodrama is a magical thing. You could fixate on one for a century, devouring its unrealistic rosiness and torrid, intermingling plot lines. Some directors (William Wyler, Edmund Goulding) are able to nourish them, managing to turn camp into something classier than overwrought trash. But then there are others (Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder) who can see the fun in the fluff, commenting on the usual inauthenticity while still making a top-notch product.

Peyton Place is the granddaddy of all Hollywood melodramas, not quite self-referential but not quite forgettable. It's just right. At nearly three hours, it is everything Days of Our Lives and The Bold and the Beautiful ever wanted to be. It has only three moods: romantic, stormily melodramatic, or vanilla, like Leave It to Beaver. These moods never mix together with continuity — there only seems to be room for the loudest of colors, shades and subtleties burnt to a crisp. Scenes are designed with the dramatized emphasis of a fashion magazine photoshoot, practically screaming that, yes, the film has a big-budget, and yes, it can afford to be filmed in CinemaScope.

Peyton Place isn't a smart melodrama cut from the same cloth as Written on the Wind, but thanks to shows like Twin Peaks, vintage soap has been given an entirely new edge. Instead of watching one for its unfiltered clutter, there seems to be a satirical acidity at play, even if it isn't on purpose. Landscape shots have the phony cheerfulness of a tempting postcard. Neighborhoods are decked out with white-picket fences, green grass, sunny skies, and clean-cut youths. Everything is too immaculate. You can sense that there is a lot of drama going on behind closed doors.

To explain the piling of story lines would be like patting my head and rubbing my stomach while typing; they have the same complexities as a family tree of socialites. All I will say is that Lana Turner is named Constance McKenzie (a name that was perhaps chosen by a soap opera character generator), and she, along with her daughter (Diane Varsi), acquaintances, and old-time friends, live in Peyton Place, an idyllic town stationed in rural New England. Gossip travels faster than a speeding bullet, romances begin as often as babies are born, and a scandal can destroy a person's life with more pain than a knife to the chest. I may enjoy watching tragedy happen to other people, but is it wrong to say that I would not be opposed to living in a town this exciting?

In Peyton Place, a blistery kiss or a b*tch slap to a well-endowed mug become the equivalents of a fiery explosion. It is hammier than Bette Davis eating a ham sandwich with Joan Crawford and Miriam Hopkins. There is plenty to stare at and gasp at and cry at and emote at, however ridiculous. We know that it's bad for us, but it is impossible not to consume something that wraps us up in a tweed suit and transports us into a parallel universe of cracked perfection. The youths, no matter how flawless they first appear, are either loose cannons on full throttle or suppressed lightweights waiting to blow up. The passive aggressive judgment of Peyton Place eventually sets their path and decides if they will be the talk-of-the-town for the rest of their life or the neighbor you beam at when you pass them at the grocery store.

Fittingly, the film became a hit not for its merit, not for its acting, not for its artistic capabilities, but because of a scandal possibly too jaw-dropping for the confines of Peyton Place. Long story short: At the time, Lana Turner was dating Mickey Cohen's right-hand man. One night, he flew into a rage, and, in response, her daughter came to her defense, stabbing him to death. Peyton Place had been out for months, making little money, but once the nonstop headlines began, it became the second highest grossing movie of 1958. Looking back, the Turner ordeal was and still is the kind of sh*t America feeds on with a frenzy. No one wants to admit that they enjoy some garbage here and there, but I'm sure the majority of InTouch readers indulge themselves not because they find value in celebrity gossip but because they find all the melodramatic lies to be a h*ll of a lot more entertaining than the intellect of Vanity Fair. As far as publicity goes, Peyton Place got its sharing served on a silver platter. What better suits faux soap than real soap?

Even with the unforgiving attention surrounding her, Turner has certainly never been better. Throughout the 1940s, she was mostly placed into the shoes of the sexy love interest, sometimes a femme fatale and sometimes the sweet girl you can't wait to go home to after fighting overseas. In Peyton Place, she is appealingly breathy, always ready with cocked eyebrow, perpetually p*ssed off at how her messy past affects her currently dusty one. She blows cigarette smoke as if she's late for an upcoming confrontation with an old mistake. Turner carries the weight of the film on her shoulders, working as its emotional core and its best actor. Some could declare her work as pure overacting, but on Peyton Place's terms, she comes out a champion. Few can say that murder lead to their career resurgence, but Turner is more than able.

One could accuse Peyton Place of being too preachy to be completely successful, but its influence is undeniable. It propelled the careers of talented young actors (Russ Tamblyn, Hope Lange), and lead to a popular TV spin-off in the 1960s, setting the standard for modern soap operas. As a standalone film, it works as a well-made, wildly entertaining soaper. The two-hours and 37 minutes go by with lightning speed; one could say that the film is too short, a good sign if there ever was one.

Okay, so I wasn't alive in the 50s. But my father certainly was.

He recommended this movie to me, and I have to say -- I was impressed.

It represents one of the few mainstream films of the era that presented day-to-day life as it really was. Peyton Place is a movie that strips away the candy-coated exterior which surrounds many a 50s film, and shows the raw and flawed lives of people who are struggling with issues that viewers in today's society can still relate to.

Although a different genre, it wasn't until I delved deeper into Film Noir that I discovered more films that presented an edgier and raw window into the world of the 40s and 50s. I appreciate a writer or director that has the guts to risk losing viewers by insisting on honest presentation of culture or events.

This film is worth a look.

This movie has few pretensions at being great art. Instead, it's a very glossy and high quality soap opera that deals with so many sleazy elements in an entertaining way that it will keep your attention throughout. The main theme is sex--teen sex as well as middle-aged woman sex--all in a supposedly conservative small town. It just seethes with a cauldron of rape, murder, illegitimacy and hypocrisy! You might have expected Ms. Turner instead to have done a movie akin to THE SINGING NUN after the much publicized trial, but instead chose this tell-all tale. All-in-all, an excellent movie with a great script, wonderful acting and terrific production values. However, it probably will shock you with its very frank talk about sexuality--something rarely seen in a 1950s A-picture from Hollywood.

"Peyton Place" was historically very interesting cause it was virtually the first miniseries in movie theaters.After viewing it,you 've got the strange feeling of having been told ten stories or to have seen ten or twelve episodes of a miniseries.

Adapted from a bestseller which spawned a -real-TV miniseries this time- in the sixties,Dorothy Malone and Mia Farrow replacing Turner and Diane Varsi ,it is the granddaddy of the soap opera miniseries we've been seeing for all those years.Classy soap opera indeed.

Although the McKenzie (Turner and Varsi) are in the center of the plot,you can hardly call them "main characters"."Peyton Place" is made of many subplots which interfere or don't.It depicts life in a small provincial town where the main danger is gossips.The fear that" people will talk" is everywhere mainly if ,like Constance ,Serena and her mother you have secrets to conceal.Doctor Matthew Swain 's final speech deals with the talk of the town.

A soap opera maybe ,but one which depicts a not so rosy world: child abuse was not a subject movies often broached in the late fifties.My favorite scene is very short and might seem to some very down to earth: the drunkard's boy licks the home made cakes of the picnic,then stuffs himself with hot dogs and watermelon which he washed down with plenty of cola.This is not a comic relief,it makes you think:this boy is miserable,because ,even if the monster is away,he knows there's a crack in the mirror at home.Psychologically,they call that "compensation".

My favorite character is Russ Tamblyn's.Although many of the problems of PP are dated now,his is still around today: the shy boy,whose mother is over possessive ,who does believe he is "a sissy,a coward" and who thinks he will never know a girl's true love because he is too gauche.There are plenty of them even now.

Peyton Place is no masterpiece but it is really an entertaining film.

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Imitation of life Douglas Sirk 1959

Rebel without a cause Nicholas Ray 1955

The Granddaddy of all soap operas, Peyton Place has its place in film and television history. When the steamy best seller by Grace Metalious and film by Jerry Wald and 20th Century Fox were converted into a television series, it set a standard for evening prime time soap operas that some will argue has never been equaled.

Times have surely changed. Set in New England as it is if Peyton Place existed it's now in the vanguard of blue state America. But in 1941 Peyton Place in New England would probably have enjoyed keeping cool with native son Calvin Coolidge and no doubt voted for Hoover, Landon, and Wilkie instead of that radical FDR in the White House.

In this prim and proper New England town it's all about keeping up appearances. Everybody knows everyone so if things aren't quite fitting the America of Norman Rockwell you keep them behind closed doors.

Like Lana Turner never bothering to tell daughter Diane Varsi that she's an out of wedlock child, like poor Russ Tamblyn not being able to relate to the opposite sex in his teen years, like Hope Lange living with a brutal rampaging father in Arthur Kennedy who physically abuses her mother Betty Field and does more than that with her.

Leon Ames as the town's employer, owner of the mill where most of the town works maybe the leading citizen, but the town's moral authority is Lloyd Nolan, a very wise and caring doctor, the kind of small town doctor who's a passing memory.

It's impossible to describe the plot of Peyton Place because there are so many strands in the plot fabric. It all works very well courtesy of screenwriter John Michael Hayes and director Mark Robson. The whole thing is narrated by Diane Varsi as Allison McKenzie who grew up and wrote a book about her home town.

Peyton Place got nine Oscar nominations, but unfortunately lost a lot of awards it was up for to The Bridge On The River Kwai. Lana Turner's one and only nomination came in a year that the Academy voters gave the Best Actress Award to relative newcomer Joanne Woodward. Russ Tamblyn and Arthur Kennedy split the vote and Red Buttons won for Sayonara for Best Supporting Actor and the same thing happened with the Best Supporting Actress with Diane Varsi and Hope Lange splitting for Miyoshi Umeki to win for Sayonara as well.

The Code was still firmly in place and had it not been I think Russ Tamblyn's character would have been more explicitly gay. Here he's a timid young man not comfortable with the opposite sex and not real popular among his own heterosexist males. Then as now, gays are not real comfortable in most small towns.

Still for those who like their big screen soap operas, you'll love Peyton Place, even with changing mores the film holds up well.