Good 50's Films: Peyton Place

1957 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by Mark Robson

Starring
Lana Turner
Hope Lange
Diane Varsi
Lee Philips
Lloyd Nolan
Arthur Kennedy
Russ Tamblyn
Terry Moore
Barry Coe
Betty Field
Mildred Dunnock
David Nelson
Leon Ames
Lorne Greene


No matter how one slices it, Peyton Place was a phenomenon.  Beginning with Grace Metalious' scorching best-selling novel and then this film, followed by a sequel.  Afterwards came a wildly popular television series and later a few TV movies.  Metalious, a fledgling writer at the time, set America on its ear with her lurid tale of sex, sin and scandal in a seemingly staid New England town shortly before the country entered WWII.

Producer Jerry Wald bought the rights less than a month after the novel's release in 1956.  It was right up his alley.  Shrewd and ambitious, he'd been the man behind bringing many great films to the screen.  He was convinced Peyton Place would be a mega-success as a novel and he wanted the same for a film.  He was right on both counts.

The novel became one of the great bestsellers of all time... everyone was reading it.  Some read it under the bed covers with a flashlight.  Some kept a plain brown wrapper over the cover.  Some wouldn't admit they were reading it.  But the juicy tale of rape, incest, murder, abortion, teenage angst, adult delinquency and sexual repression was a must-read whether some fessed up to it or not.

Wald brought Metalious to Hollywood ostensibly to help iron out a screenplay but he knew she would be of little help and he didn't really intend to use her in any way other than for the publicity her presence would generate.  The small town writer was not only frightened of the Hollywood scene but was horrified at how screenwriter John Michael Hayes had sanitized her novel.  She could not possibly have known that more would be revealed on the screen than movies of the 1950's were accustomed to showing. 

Wald, Hayes and director Mark Robson accurately pinpointed that their film would be one of the great soap operas of all time.  In some circles it is considered to be the granddaddy of all movie soaps. The day-to-day activities of the residents and the unveiling of their secrets would be a case of sentimentality meeting sordid.

Three women stand at the forefront of the tale.  Allison MacKenzie
and her lifelong friend, Selena Cross, are about to graduate from high school.  Allison's mother, Constance, keeps a tight rein on her daughter that stems not from Allison's behavior but Constance's when she was a young woman.  The MacKenzies live well while the Cross family is not only from the other side of the tracks but when the train rolls by, it sounds like it's coming through the living room.  Selena's mother, Nellie, is the housekeeper for Constance MacKenize.

Lange, Field and Kennedy as the Cross family

Constance is sexually-repressed due to her own past... an affair with a married man who dies as she discovers she's pregnant.  She has never told her daughter the truth and when Allison finds out, a serious breech in their relationship develops.

Constance also has great difficulty learning to relax around Michael Rossi, newly hired as the principal of Peyton Place High. He falls in love with her and is obviously a prince among men even as she throws up one roadblock after another.

Allison is a would-be writer who hopes to move to New York after graduation.  She is obviously based on Metalious herself.  She pals around with Norman Page who suffers under the pressure of a domineering mother.  That mother-son relationship outlined in the book was never for a moment considered for the screen version... not in 1957.  Allison's nature is one of a helper and her friendship with Norman is tender.  

The meatiest section of the story involves Selena.  Her drunken loser of a stepfather, Lucas, rapes her, resulting in a pregnancy.  Later he chases her through the woods and she tumbles down a hill, resulting in a miscarriage.  (In the novel she has an abortion but that wouldn't fly in 1957 either, much to Metalious' annoyance.)  Selena wants it all kept a secret, especially from her boyfriend, Ted Carter, whose upper-crust family she fears will shun her.

Lucas runs off and joins the Navy and when he suddenly returns and attempts to have another go at his past sins, Selena clubs him to death with a fireplace log.  Unfortunately she makes the decision to bury the body.  Her trial is the centerpiece of the film's finale. 

While I always found the film to be a frolicsome good yarn with its myriad plot threads, I had to snicker at the notion that it was a dirty little town with all these secrets about to spill out.  Other than the Cross plot line, the writing never convinced me that I was witnessing a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.  Obviously this was the gripe of Metalious as well.

A rather amusing aspect comes in the form of pondering who's more messed up here, the kids or the adults.  It doesn't take but a moment to realize Allison has it more together than Constance, the same for Selena over her mother and stepfather and the same for Rodney Harrington over his wealthy father.   

Mark Robson, a strong director, had a special knack for handling actors.  He didn't put up with a lot of ego and the fact that everything was fairly calm on a set with such a large company is due to him.  He is the subject of the next posting.

A huge cast would be assembled to help put the film over the top.  When the opening credits spill out, it would display the actor's name and the character he or she played which is a credit to how famous these characters were.  There are 13 key roles, filled mainly by established character actors and the youth brigade playing Peyton Place's graduating class.  There wasn't a huge star in 12 of those roles.

Decided at the beginning of casting that the role of Constance MacKenzie would be played by a big name, there was talk that Fox would hire one of its premier contract actresses, Susan Hayward.  When that fell through, Jane Wyman and Olivia deHavilland's names were tossed around.  

Finally it was offered to Lana Turner who accepted with mixed emotions.  On the one hand, it would get her out of the house which she was fearfully sharing with mobster Johnny Stompanato who ominously kept track of her every move.  The other side of the coin was that Turner had never played the mother of a teenage daughter (despite having one at home) and she bristled at the thought of that tarnishing her glamour-girl reputation.  (Shortly after the film's release her reputation would be more than tarnished when her daughter stabbed Stompanato to death which caused revenues on the movie to increase even more.)  Additionally, while she would be top-billed, this was more an ensemble film and she would be sharing screen time with two far younger actresses.

Turner would gain a new respect from her peers for playing this role and she would get her only Oscar nomination.  For these reasons I  found it curious that she wrote about 20 words in her autobiography on the film.  Really?  That's it?  Imagine Lana Turner playing a sexually-repressed character.  Now that's acting.  No wonder she got an Oscar nod. 

Philips, Turner and Varsi in the final scene

Another curious move was hiring Lee Philips to play the leading male role, Michael Rossi, the new principal.  There was a lineup to play most roles in this film... the high visibility being at the heart of the matter.  Philips was unknown... he was a Broadway actor making his first film.  Rossi is caring and life-smart and just the man to lead Constance out of her repression.  There was something about Philips' manner that I was drawn to but he left acting after a short time and began a long directing career.

Former folk singer Diane Varsi was discovered in an L.A. acting class and given the plum role of Allison, essentially the lead character and narrator of the story.  It was also her first film but she was not the first one wanted for the role.  That was Susan Strasberg who demanded too much money.

Varsi and Turner are the focus of my favorite scene.  After years of concealing the truth of Allison's birth, Constance blurts it causing her daughter to hole up in her room and stop speaking to her mother.  Constance brings her daughter some food and tries to smooth things over.

Finally Allison says Mother, soon as I can, I am going to get dressed, pack my things and leave Peyton Place.  I never want to see this town or you again.

Constance is stunned.  You don't mean that.  How will you live?  What will you do for money?  Allison says she'll get a job.  What if you can't find a job, Constance pleads.

The background music stops and there's dead silence.  Then I'll live off some man the way you did.

Varsi was also nominated for an Oscar and a lot of newborn girls were named Allison.

Also nominated for an Oscar was the enchanting Hope Lange.  (She was the first actress I liked with that surname but not the last.)  She brings great pathos and strength to Selena in just her third movie.  In The Return to Peyton Place (1961), Selena would be played by Tuesday Weld and the Cross family was never mentioned in the television series.

Russ Tamblyn (also Oscar-nominated), lent an air of sadness as Norman; David Nelson, was too boring in an underwritten role as Ted Carter, Selena's trusted beau; handsome Barry Coe is Rodney Harrington, the town heartthrob, and Terry Moore is Betty Anderson, Rodney's too-flashy girlfriend.  They round out the young cast although the ages of these actors were a bit off considering they were all from the same graduating class.  Moore was nine years older than Varsi with the others somewhere in between.  

The older generation also excelled.  Arthur Kennedy (the fifth actor nominated and his third under Robson's direction) as the brutish, drunken Lucas Cross, gave his usual impeccable performance.  Betty Field is Nellie Cross, whose heart has been broken and spirit crushed, is the film's most tragic character.  Lloyd Nolan is the moral authority as Dr. Swain who has an important role and speech at the trial.  The ever-reliable Mildred Dunnock plays beloved schoolteacher Elsie Thornton whose students love her and share her sadness when she doesn't get the principal's position.  Leon Ames is the owner of the town's mill, the backbone of the small community, and the controlling father of Rodney.

Ace cinematographer William Mellor's lush, warm look at the New England countryside and the quaintness of the small town is so damned inviting.  Franz Waxman produced a theme song, Wonderful Season of Love, that is gorgeously played throughout the film and in every incarnation of Peyton Place in the years to come.

I had not read the book until several years after seeing the film.  What I knew about it that greatly appealed to me was its look at small town America.  I love small towns although I would prefer to not live in one.  Driving through them to this day, especially in autumn, still produces the pleasure it always has.   

I was reminded of two other films I enjoyed about small towns.  In 1942 was King's Row, which is similar to Peyton Place in its darker themes, and another was Picnic, made in 1955.  Interestingly, Betty Field was also in both of those films. I've often wondered if the latter might have spurred Metalious into writing her book.

The author

Grace Metalious wrote about what she knew well... life in the small town of Gilmanton, New Hampshire, where her husband was a school principal.  (The Selena Cross story was ripped from the headlines of that city's newspaper.)  20th Century Fox wanted to film in Gilmanton but the city fathers screamed bloody murder.  They weren't especially fond of Metalious and they loathed the notoriety her novel brought to their city.  So the location work was changed to Maine, most especially the city of Camden.  The following captures that magic...

Peyton Place would receive a total of nine Oscar nominations and it won none.  That may have been a record at the time but it has since been passed by both The Turning Point and The Color Purple with 11 nominations and no wins.

Oscars wins or not, sanitized or not, Peyton Place is a completely absorbing film, lovely to look at and a good way to spend two and a half hours.