Peyton Place
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.02 You Save: $7.96 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $6.21 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Peyton Place
Movie Review: Lonrsome Dove
Summary: 5 Stars
I have enjoyed the series "Lonesome Dove" very much; I only wish they would of continued with it.Movie Review: This flick is so fifties, you can smell the bad perfume.
Summary: 5 Stars
White girl gets abortion.Movie Review: THIS ONE HAS IT ALL - THE CLASSY/TRASHY 50s KITSCH CLASSIC
Summary: 4 Stars
"Peyton Place" is the 50s big budget, widescreen precursor to all 60s television soap operas. It's teeming with adultery and bald faced lies set against the backdrop of a small mid-west America town - a place where everybody knows your name and nobody is above a good scandal or torrid piece of gossip. Lana Turner headlines as Constance MacKenzie, the prudish mother of upright and proper teenager, Allison (Diane Varsi). Constance?s neurotic fear of sex masks her own checkered past, one that eventually drives her daughter to distraction. Sensitive to her own values, Allison befriends introvert and sexually repressed, Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn). The two develop a lasting friendship that is temporarily put on ice when a rumor circulates that Norman and Allison were skinny dipping in a nearby lake ? imagine that! Meanwhile, newly appointed high school principal, Mike Rossi (Lee Philips) is in hot pursuit of Constance?s affections. Though Constance thwarts Mike?s initial advances with all the tact and remedy of an ice pick, she can?t help but eventually warm to the heat of desire that exists between them. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or at least the flee bitten dilapidated shack of Nellie (Betty Field) and Lucas (Arthur Kennedy) Cross; Selena Cross (Hope Lange) struggles to ward off the drunken advances of her maniacal stepfather. Selena?s procurement of work in Constance?s dress shop seems like a step in the right direction. Her mother is Constance?s housekeeper. However, Lucas? jealous rage over a budding romance between Selena and Ted Carter (David Nelson) leads to her rape and impregnation. When Selena suffers a miscarriage, also by Lucas? hand, Nellie puts two and two together, come up with four and commits suicide by hanging herself in Allison?s closet. Doc Swain (Lloyd Nolan), the kindly physician who tended to Selena?s miscarriage exiles Lucas from Peyton Place with a signed confession that he threatens to turn over to the authorities. But Lucas can?t help himself. He returns one snowy and unsuspecting eve to ravage Selena again. But this time Selena is ready for him. She murders Lucas and buries the body in the back yard.
There?s plenty more sin on tap in town, between fast and easy Betty Anderson (Terry Moore) and Rodney Harrington (Barry Coe), the heir to a textile industry presided over by Rodney?s father (Leon Ames). Mr. Harrington tries everything to thwart their illicit romance, even fabricating an interest on Allison?s part which results in a disastrous graduation dance for all concerned. Eventually, Rodney acquires enough conviction to oppose his father and marry Betty.
The movie, considered something of a censorship breakthrough at the time of its general release, is a complete sanitization of the original sin soaked pages from Grace Metalious' novel which included, among other things, incest and sexual perversion. Considered something of a Benedict Arnold in her own home town, Metalious? real life ended tragically at the age of 36 when alcohol addiction caught up with her. Nevertheless, the film still packs one heck of a wallop. Several months following its release, Lana Turner?s own life mirrored the film?s narrative when her daughter, Cheryl Crane murdered her lover, Johnny Stompanado ? the right hand thug of racketeer, Mickey Cohen.
In keeping with Fox?s usual quality in their ?Studio Series?, the anamorphic 2:35:1 Cinemascope picture has been rendered with rich and saturated colors and minimal film grain. Occasionally rear projection shots give themselves away, being slightly blurry and exhibiting a different color scheme than other shots in the film. There is also a hint of edge enhancement and pixelization for a picture that, while smooth, occasionally draws attention to itself. There?s also one gigantic tear in the original negative that intrudes on the scene where the graduating class has gathered for a party in the high school gymnasium. The audio is 5.1 and nicely remixed to celebrate the richness of the original six-track stereo elements. Extras include a brief BACKSTORY episode from AMC that chronicles the making of the movie. There?s also an audio commentary in which Terry Moore incorrectly remembers Peyton Place as being the first Cinemascope movie ever made.
Movie Review: Secrets Of A Small Town
Summary: 4 Stars
The scandalous best-selling novel by Grace Metalious is brought to life in this somewhat watered-down 20th Century Fox production, although it was still considered shocking and controversial for the time. Filmed on location in Camden, Maine with some interiors at the studio, the movie has an authentic feel, particularly in comparison to previous pictures shot entirely on backlots. Lana Turner, whose career needed a shot in the arm, took on the role of Constance MacKenzie, a woman who hides her teenage daughter Allison's (Diane Varsi) illegitimacy, and strives to control the girl from making the same mistakes that she did. Although this is the main storyline, several others intertwine, exposing the underside and hypocrisy of small town life. Next in line is definitely the plight of Allison's best friend, Selena Cross (Hope Lange), whose poverty-stricken existence isn't even the half of what goes on in her luckless life. Her despicable stepfather Lucas Cross (Arthur Kennedy, who at this stage in his career masterfully portrayed drunken lowlifes), rapes her (which results in a pregnancy which Selena later miscarries), and her mother Nelly (Betty Field), who also happens to be the MacKenzie's maid, discovers this and commits suicide. Betty Anderson (Terry Moore) is the town "fast girl" whose romantic liaisons set the community's tongues wagging, while Constance tries to fight her attraction to high school principal Mike Rossi (Lee Phillips), again afraid of history repeating itself. Betty loves Rodney Harrington, son of the most prominent family in town, and the two manage to marry before he goes off to battle in WWII.
Allison finds innocent love with Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn), which sets off her mother's suspicions. Distraught over Constance's revelation over the truth regarding her father, Allison angrily leaves Peyton Place for New York. Rodney dies in the war, Norman finally comes into his own with the war service (the incestuous relationship with his domineering mother is hinted at, but never expanded upon). The tug of war waged between mother and daughter comes full circle as does everything else when Selena murders her stepfather in self-defense, goes on trial, and so in a sense, does Peyton Place. During the climatic courtroom sequence, the town's secrets and faults are exposed. The wonderfully wistful narration by Varsi adds an air of poignancy. Mildred Dunnock, Lloyd Nolan, Leon Ames and Lorne Green also have notable roles. Director Mark Robson would go on to direct the 1967 film version of "Valley Of The Dolls", while Peyton Place would inspire a sequel book and film, as well as a primetime soap opera from 1964 to 1967.
A box-office smash upon its release in 1957, more than partly due, no doubt to the scandal which immediately followed the 1958 Oscars for which Turner, Varsi, Lange, Kennedy and Tamblyn received nominations for their performances in the film. Lana Turner's mobster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, was stabbed by her teenage daughter, Cheryl Crane, during a violent argument in which he threatened to kill Turner, as well as her mother and daughter. (Turner is wearing jewellery given to her by the mob figure in some scenes). Lana's testimony at Cheryl's trial was seen as a direct parallel to her performance as Constance in the courtroom scene in the movie, and in later years, Crane revealed that her mother's husband prior to her involvement with Stompanato, Lex Barker, was molesting her, another coincidence that did not go unnoticed by Crane when she first saw the movie. Author Metalious reportedly based both books on her own hometown, and the characters of Allison and Selena were apparently based on herself.
Not as explicit as the novel or as films of today, Peyton Place nevertheless is an intriguing, dramatic and watchable movie that definitely captures an earlier time, and it remains an interesting example of how art can imitate life.
The DVD: Commentary by Russ Tamblyn and Terry Moore (recorded separately, alas, so no interaction), on the flip side, AMC Backstory documentary on the filming, theatrical and teaser trailers, as well as the Photoplay Awards.
Movie Review: Sex, frustration and violence ferment under the placid surface of a small New England town...
Summary: 4 Stars
Mark Robson did a superior job of evoking the feeling of life in a nice place where "time is not measured by the clock or the calendar, but by the seasons." Robson avoids the trashy approach and presents its people in a compassionate light... There are a host of first-rate performances...
The story takes place in the late 1930s and begins as the High School's new principal, Michael Rossi (Lee Philips), arrives in town to assume his duties... In quick succession, many of the town's local inhabitants are introduced...
Constance MacKenzie (Lana Turner) is an attractive widow who owns a dress shop... She runs it efficiently and persists in keeping her teen-aged daughter, Allison (Diane Varsi in her film debut), insulated from the world...
Allison's best friend is Selena Cross (Hope Lange), who lives in a shack on the wrong side of town with her worn-out mother, Constance's housekeeper Betty Field, and her brutal stepfather, Lucas (Arthur Kennedy).
There is also Russ Tamblyn, a sensitive, insecure mother-dominated adolescent; Barry Coy, the arrogant son of the town's biggest tycoon; Terry Moore, the school flirt; David Nelson, the boyfriend of Selena Cross; and Doc Swain (Lloyd Nolan), a well-liked medic... These are the most prominent characters among a large assortment of townspeople whose lives form a pattern of love, hate and destruction...
The first of the narrative's dramatic occasions is set one evening after the high school's Graduation Dance when Ted proposes to Selena and she promises to wait for him to become a successful lawyer...
That night when she returns to her ramshackle home, Selena finds her stepfather, Lucas, alone, drunk, and abusive... He attacks her, as a result of which she becomes pregnant...
Doc Swain immediately confronts Lucas with his crime, obtains a written confession from him and orders the man to leave 'Peyton Place' for good... Later, the doctor is forced to perform an abortion on Selena which he lists officially as an appendectomy...
The plot then shifts to the emotional conflict between school principal Rossi and Constance... Rossi has been making a romantic bid for Constance but she bitterly rejects his love in her continued retreat from any emotional commitment...
When Constance is told by the town gossip that Allison has been swimming in the nude with Russ Tamblyn, she confronts her daughter with the story... An angry scene follows, and the truth is revealed... Chaotic series of events follows...
'Peyton Place' is a scandalous bestseller, one of the first to reveal those nasty secrets of ordinary people... It draws nine Oscar nominations... The motion picture offers an extremely tasteful portrait of an American town, with an intelligent, sensitive concern for its characters... It is a wholly unobjectionable entertainment which retains all of the strong dramatic qualities of the novel..