Peyton Place - novel, movie, soap

The film had to water the novel down substantially but it was a huge hit nonetheless.

I saw it for the first time last year in a double feature with Picnic and loved it.

Is the book worthwhile?

I just saw it too. The scandals wouldn’t register in today’s trashy kardashian cultire

Starring Mia Farrow and some other people.

The '60s soap opera version is strangely compelling. The book is a hoot. The opening line is something like "Indian summer is like a woman - ripe, hotly passionate, but fickle." Then it gets nuttier from there!

Russ Tamblyn seems to be one of those actors who was in many successful films (Peyton Place, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, West Side Story) , but now is largely forgotten.

I always found the guy who played Lana Turner's love interest to be totally hot. He was shirtless in an old Perry Mason episode, and I almost shot a load on the spot.

Grace Metalious (author of Peyton Place) got screwed over by 20th Century Fox. She sold movie, TV, and all media rights for a measly $250,000.00 and NOT even asking for a cut in the profits

Authors didn’t get good deals in those days and Metalious was a train wreck.

Well I read a biography on Metalious, and not only did the movie studio screw her over, her literary agent did as well.

all around, she got bad advice

I love the movie--great, overwrought melodrama. Lana Turner and Hope Lange are both fun to watch in it (Turner is over-the-top as usual), and the cinematography is gorgeous. Russ Tamblyn was adorable, too. I've never seen the TV series, though I've always been interested in it considering it was Mia Farrow's first real acting gig.

The TV version got a DVD but only the first 50 or 60 episodes are available and there were over 400.

R11 they are all on YouTube

R6, he was freaking Doctor Jacobi on Twin Peaks.

Jacoby. Excuse me.

Any other similar movie (and books)?

There’s Picnic and A Summer Place

R15 Douglas Sirk's big Hollywood movies have a similar disposition—"All That Heaven Allows" and "Written on the Wind" both come to mind. Neither are quite as salacious as "Peyton Place," but are similar atmospherically & visually.

"Kings Row" was a similarly controversial novel about the seamy side of a small town, and it was also diluted in the movie version, which was a big hit in 1941 and nominated for Best Picture..

Kings Row and the Hays Code

A film adaptation of Bellamann's controversial novel, modeled on his home town of Fulton, Missouri, presented significant problems for movie industry censors, who sought to bring the film into conformity with the Hays Code. Screenwriter Casey Robinson believed the project was hopeless because of the Hays Code. Producer Hal B. Wallis said that Robinson felt "I was crazy to have bought so downbeat a property." Wallis urged him to reconsider, and it occurred to Robinson that he could turn this into the story of "an idealistic young doctor challenged by the realities of a cruel and horrifying world."[7]

Joseph Breen, director of the Production Code Authority, which administered the Hays Code, wrote the producers that "To attempt to translate such a story to the screen, even though it be re-written to conform to the provisions of the Production Code is, in our judgment, a very questionable undertaking from the standpoint of the good and welfare of this industry."[6]

Breen objected to "illicit sexual relationships" between characters in the movie "without sufficient compensating moral values", and also objected to "the general suggestion of loose sex...which carries throughout the entire script." Breen also voiced concern about the characterization of Cassandra, who is a victim of incest with her father in the novel, as well as the mercy killing of the grandmother by Parris also depicted in the novel, and "the sadistic characterization of Dr. Gordon."[

Dr. Tower (Claude Rains) commits incest with his daughter Cassandra in the novel. Censors forbade that in the film. Breen said that any screenplay, no matter how well done, would likely bring condemnation of the film industry "from decent people everywhere" because of "the fact that it stems from so thoroughly questionable a novel. He said that the script was being referred to his superior, Will Hays, "for a decision as to the acceptability of any production based upon the novel, Kings Row."

Robinson, Wallis and associate producer David Lewis[14] met with Breen to resolve these issues, with Wallis saying that the film would "illustrate how a doctor could relieve the internal destruction of a stricken community." Breen said that his office would approve the film if all references to incest, nymphomania, euthanasia and homosexuality, which had been suggested in the novel, be removed. All references to nude bathing were to be eliminated and "the suggestion of a sex affair between Randy and Drake will be eliminated entirely."

The Metalius biography talks about the influence of King's Row.

The interesting thing about Peyton Place is how completely it is written from a woman's point of view. The men are defined by their attractiveness and the women have complex inner lives.

I was really moved when the jury acquitted Selina of murder. They knew they had not been able to protect her from her father, but they were not about to punish her for remedying the situation. I do not know how it is handled in the film, but in the book it is great.

Learning that this was based on a real story and that the town continued to protect the woman Selina was based on when reporters came looking for her, was also moving.

No mention of the sequel (based on Metalious's follow-up novel.)

Any more recommendations?

Lee Philips was a handsome man, but his voice was rather pitchy and didn't suit the dashing leading man stereotype. He played a Hugh Hefner-type gentlemen's magazine publisher on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and when he spoke, I immediately recognized him from "Peyton Place."

Recommendation: I don't know if this is the timeframe you're looking for but Double Indemnity by James M. Cain is a gread, salacious read and the movie with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray is full of steamy scenes. The endings are different but they both hold up. I think his novel The Postman Always Rings Twice is much better than the movie with John Garfield and Lana Turner but it's worth a watch. The remake with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange is ridiculous.

I was able to buy the entire TV series on DVD for $50 and I just finished watching it. It was very, very good. I was too young to have watched it in it's original run but wanted to see it because I love soap operas. It was well worth the watch. It also came with the two TV movies that were very campy.

It's exactly the kind of movie I love to crawl into and get lost in. I love that Lana Turner had a career that spanned her (completely luscious) beginning career - what was she? 16? and then these later stage hambone melodramas that she did. With a lot of work in between. That's some movie star maneuvering, I tell ya.

You watch this and that damn theme music stays inside your head for quite a while. Job well done I guess.

Lloyd Norman’s character really bugged me. Interesting how doctors (and pilots)were treated like gods for many years.

Here’s a pic of Betty (Terry Moore); she’s 91!

Lloyd NOLAN, R25

I knew that! I was thinking about him and Norman Lloyd and typed incorrectly.

I preferred Peyton's place