{"id":15916,"date":"2017-05-01T12:59:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T16:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=15916"},"modified":"2017-05-01T13:25:59","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T17:25:59","slug":"br-peyton-place-1957","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=15916","title":{"rendered":"BR: Peyton Place (1957)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Film<\/strong>:\u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Twilight Time<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0All<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0March 14, 2017<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Melodrama<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Deep-rooted secrets of an insular town in Maine are exposed when a young girl is brutally raped, and forbidden love breaks apart already fragile families.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Audio Commentary #1 (2017): with filmmaker and historian Willard Carroll \/ Audio Commentary #2 (2004): with actors Terry Moore and Russ Tamblyn \/ 2017 featurette (HD): \u201cOn Location in Peyton Place\u201d with optional Willard Carroll Audio commentary (7:34) \/ 2004 AMC Backstory: Peyton Place (25:06) \/ 2 Fox Movietone Newsreels from 1957 (2:30) \/ Original Theatrical Trailers \/ 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ Limited to 3000 copies \/ Available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a> and www.twilighttimemovies.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The backstory behind the creation of the source novel for Fox\u2019s hit film version is no less fascinating: after writing her first novel over several years, housewife Grace Metalious<\/a>\u2019 efforts were published in 1956, sold 60,000 copies in its first 10 days on sale, 100,000 copies within its first month, and 12 million over time \u2013 an unheard of blockbuster and literary sensation\u2026 and then at 9 years later Metalious, uncomfortable with sudden fame and the backlash from her local townsfolk, was dead at 39 from the ravages of alcoholism.<\/p>\n

Critics pretty much deemed the novel sordid and rubbish, and even in an interview she felt her novel wouldn\u2019t have the longevity of a modern classic (she gave it 25 years), and yet the book, its Maine setting, its vast bulk of characters with secrets and in an insular mill town, a murder, and frank sexual practices, taboos, and rape were seemingly exactly what 1950s readers needed \u2013 basically a wallop to upset the staid image of obedient\u00a0housewives in designer dresses, good husbands, squeaky-clean\u00a0kids, and a white picket fence world where nothing seedy could possibly exist under the deep green grass.<\/p>\n

If even a handful of elements sound familiar, then it\u2019s no surprise David Lynch and Mark Frost created their version of Metalious\u2019 world into Twin Peaks<\/strong> (1990-1991), a mill town with rich, poor, sexy, sleazy, weird, exotic, and strange behaviour in perfectly idyllic surroundings like coffee shops, parks, schools, and verdant forests. Even the recurring visual motif of wind-blown trees were snatched from Peyton Place<\/strong> the film, in which director \/ Montreal-born Mark Robson interspersed footage of billowing foliage during summer and blazing amber fall season.<\/p>\n

Fox was no stranger to tackling controversial subjects \u2013 former Production bigwig Darryl F. Zanuck supervised the gangster films at Warner Bros., then greenlit films on racism (Pinky<\/strong>) and anti-Semitism (Gentleman\u2019s Agreement<\/a><\/strong>) \u2013 and producing a movie\u00a0from an supposedly unfilmable novel was the perfect assignment for studio, director Robson, and screenwriter John Michael Hayes, the latter a man who never had issues with small or large character based tales and complex storylines.<\/p>\n

Hayes, brilliant with original dialogue, could add little gems of wit to enliven an already bubbly scene, and proof of his genius lies in a quartet of Alfred Hitchcock films, including Rear Window <\/strong>(1954), To Catch a Thief<\/strong> (1955), The Trouble with Harry <\/strong>(1955), and The Man Who Knew Too Much<\/strong> (1956). As Peyton Place <\/strong>historian Willard Carroll notes in his commentary track, pretty much all of the autumnal tree shots are stock images from Harry<\/strong>, one of many small degrees of minor separation between cast & crew within Robson\u2019s film.<\/p>\n

Metalious’ drama begins when Michael Rossi (Lee Philips) drives into town and ultimately accepts the position of high school principal, trying to inspire the kids and think more freely just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Rossi has a passion for dress shop owner \/ widower Constance MacKenzie (Lana Turner), who harbours a deep secret from teen daughter \/ aspiring writer Allison (Diane Varsi); Constance\u2019s maid Nellie Cross (Betty Field) is married to drunk \/ school janitor Lucas (superb Arthur Kennedy), a sleazybag with eyes for stepdaughter Selena (Hope Lange); momma\u2019s boy Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn) has eyes for Allison; and school harlot Betty Anderson (Terry Moore) wants to marry Rodney Harrington (Barry Coe), the son of the town\u2019s biggest employer (played by ever-snarling, bellowing Leon Ames).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s teen sex, skinny dipping, incest, single unwed mothers, tarts, and oodles more, with Dr. Swain (Lloyd Nolan, in one of his best supporting roles) frequently popping up as an unofficial problem-solver when big social taboos percolate. His\u00a0elephant’s memory ensures he has some goods on every citizen, and Swain becomes a key player in the mounting dramas that ultimately converge in a rape trial featuring Canada\u2019s own Voice of Doom and future Bonanza<\/strong>\u00a0patriarch (1959-1973), Lorne Greene, as a suave, manipulative prosecuting attorney.<\/p>\n

Metalious said she was pleased with the film version in spite of Hayes having to tone down and change more than a few things to keep censors happy, but historian Carroll also notes that Peyton<\/strong> was an important nail in the Production Code\u2019s coffin: wanting to appear more with-it to the changing mores of the era, certain subjects and language long taboo were permitted with specific allowances that set important precedents in weakening the body\u2019s ability to massively alter literary works in later productions.<\/p>\n

Although set between the mid to late 1940s, Carroll\u2019s correct\u00a0in citing the film as a stealthy commentary of the 1950s, with its depiction of teen rebellion being natural instead of morally outrageous. The generational contrasts can\u2019t be any clearer: Rossi\u2019s brand of free thinking and expanding young minds runs contrary to the cheap-minded school board who want a loyal moral lieutenant to keep their kids in line.<\/p>\n

Moreover, chaste Constance is outmoded in shielding her daughter from a secret\u00a0she could\u2019ve handled at an early age because truth and honesty are more important to her than social correctness. Additionally, in Hayes\u2019 adaptation, momma\u2019s boy Norman ultimately eschews his mother\u2019s control, returning\u00a0home a war hero, and a confident stud (which Tamblyn neatly conveys with frank arm and whole body placement in a train scene, signaling to Allison he\u2019s no longer a\u00a0quiet wallflower, and wants to take her to bed very soon).<\/p>\n

Mr. Harrington ultimately accepts tarty Betty for what she is \u2013 in Hayes\u2019 redo, an independent, sexual woman who truly loved his son \u2013 and Selena\u2019s fianc\u00e9 Ted Carter (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet<\/strong>‘s\u00a0<\/em>David Nelson) is supportive and defensive when her life is turned upside-down by Lucas, and the town sends silent daggers her way in court.<\/p>\n

The importance of Hayes\u2019 script can\u2019t be lessened: it\u2019s a masterwork of structure, pacing, and meticulous organization in which no character is weakened, ignored, forgotten, nor does dumbass things due to loose ends. There isn\u2019t an off-beat line, a reflection that isn\u2019t a clean encapsulation of a character\u2019s state \u2013 Allison and Norman\u2019s mountain chat is such a finely dramatize scene of teen angst, hunger, and fear of the adult world to which they\u2019re being attracted \u2013 and secondary characters never pop up in oddly paced moments. Even the device of Allison\u2019s narration at the film\u2019s bookends and time-jump after she heads off to NYC feel natural (no doubt aided by the pretty stock footage and Franz Waxman\u2019s extraordinary score and main theme).<\/p>\n

Hayes\u2019 script also retains Metalious\u2019 concept of a small town being a microcosm of very real issues happening all over the world, and the rot that sets in when a society becomes too insular and feeds on its own flaws, creating a pecking order and cosmetic mores that mask cruelty and aberrant behaviour. Historian Carroll amusingly notes how Norman in Metalious\u2019 novel was a man-child, bathed by his mother and restrained from depending on anyone except Mother \u2013 a toxic relationship that manifested itself in Robert Bloch\u2019s Psycho<\/strong> via\u00a0Norman Bates, the world\u2019s best known momma\u2019s boy who in turn was based on serial killer Ed Gein.<\/p>\n

Former editor Robson eventually moved from tight genre efforts (Isle of the Dead<\/strong>, Bedlam<\/strong>) to bigger and more bloated productions, but certainly in Peyton<\/strong>, his knack for pacing ensured the scenes ran lean, and loose ends and dead ends were trimmed. Carroll cites a few moments where material was shorn from the final release version (namely Selena\u2019s brother, who\u2019s gone after an early brief intro), and provides huge information on the locations which were revisited and lovingly filmed by Carroll in HD in an excellent, strangely moving featurette set to Waxman\u2019s score extracts that\u2019s the product of 7 years of research, and outright fan obsession.<\/p>\n

The cinematography by veteran William Mellor (Giant<\/strong>, Wild in the Country<\/strong>, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation<\/a><\/strong>) is extraordinary, and it\u2019s perhaps the one area that doesn\u2019t get as much attention from the historians assembled for Twilight Time and the prior Fox-produced extras from 2004. Whether Robson wanted to infer dark subject matter with high contrast lighting, temper sexual heat for the production Code with plenty of shaded faces and silhouetted bodies, or accentuate the withholding of secrets through darkness after explosive pastel coloured scenes, Mellor\u2019s use of light, colour, and shadow is remarkable, and a textbook example of meticulous lighting where darkness is as important to characters and subtext as bright colours.<\/p>\n

Fox\u2019s HD transfer is radiant yet retains the original grain of the film stock, and most of the footage is free from CinemaScope \u2018mumps\u2019 \u2013 only wide angle pans reveal some warping at the edges. Waxman\u2019s score booms in stereo 2.0 and 5.1, and TT\u2019s Blu-ray is the definitive presentation for a franchise that Fox should<\/em> be plotting to exploit this year once Lynch and Frost\u2019s own Twin Peaks<\/strong>\u00a02017 revisitation debuts.<\/p>\n

Julie Kirgo\u2019s fine essay provides a snapshot of the film\u2019s position in Eisenhower America, with nods to director Robson and producer Jerry Wald. Like fellow film historian Carroll, she describes the rush shared by many who read the era\u2019s dirtiest novel in secret with covered jackets, turning taboo-laden pages in \u2018bathrooms and basements under flashlight.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the commentaries, details on the sequel, Return to Peyton Place<\/strong> (1961) and the TV series are modest. TT\u2019s Carroll commentary and his \u201cOn Location in Peyton Place\u201d featurette with optional commentary are new, but atypical from TT\u2019s releases is the lack of an isolated score track \u2013 either one wasn\u2019t available in usable condition, or rights and availability prevented the TT team from offering Waxman\u2019s rhapsodic yet tender score.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ported over from the 2004 Fox disc are the edited commentary with actors Terry Moore and Russ Tamblyn, newsreels, and an episode of AMC Backstory<\/strong> on Metalious, which features a rare no-nonsense \/ fuck \u2018em all interview conducted by Canada\u2019s Joyce Davidson, and clips from screen tests. (In one short snippet, Joan Collins can be seen among her fellow Fox contract starlets. Although Collins didn\u2019t get a role in Peyton<\/strong>, she would appear in a quartet of 1957 releases: Sea Wife<\/a><\/strong>, The Wayward Bus<\/a><\/strong>, Island in the Sun<\/strong>, and Stopover Tokyo<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

The commentaries ultimately develop their own share of silent gaps \u2013 at 156 mins, it\u2019s a long movie to cover \u2013 and even Carroll steps back and lets key dialogue scenes \u2018play\u2019 to buffer what becomes increasingly sparse comments. In both cases, a mix of editing and chapter jumps would’ve saved the listener from having to shuttle through dead spots, but the information and anecdotes are nevertheless important. (Carroll is especially helpful in citing differences between the films and TV adaptations, and severe changes to characters and taboo subjects and plotlines.)<\/p>\n

In 2004, Fox still had a special features team that sought out and recorded rare interviews, and it is amusing to note how Tamblyn himself would appear in Twin Peaks<\/strong> decades later as Dr. Jacoby.<\/p>\n

The packed cast includes a mass of veterans, but not everyone benefited from the Peyton <\/strong>magic. Lee Philips, who’s more wooden than enticing as Constance\u2019s sexual liberator, became a massively prolific TV director, even helming 7 episodes of the spin-off TV series; Barry Coe popped up in Fox\u2019s The Bravados <\/strong>(1958), 300 Spartans<\/a> <\/strong>(1962), and Fantastic Voyage<\/strong> (1966) before ultimately stepping away from TV and film after\u00a0Jaws 2<\/strong> (1978); Diane Varsi was reportedly never a fan of high profile productions, and after making her debut in Peyton<\/strong>, she appeared in Fox\u2019s Ten North Frederick<\/strong> (1958), From Hell to Texas<\/strong> (1958), and Compulsion<\/strong> (1959), and after some TV roles and a handful of cult films, she died from complications attributed to Lyme disease in 1992.<\/p>\n

Russ Tamblyn had successfully graduated from child actor (Father of the Bride<\/a><\/strong>) to musical dancer (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers<\/strong>) and earned an Oscar Nomination for Best Support Actor with Peyton<\/strong>, but after West Side Story<\/strong> (1961) and The Haunting<\/a><\/strong> (1963), he eased away from studio fodder, a topic he addresses to some degree in the 2004 commentary track.<\/p>\n

Prolific Terry Moore may not be as well-known among the female cast, but the former child actor appeared in Son of Lassie<\/a><\/strong> (1945) and Mighty Joe Young<\/a> <\/strong>(1949), and co-starred in two important early \u2018Scope productions: Beneath the 12-Mile Reef <\/strong>(1953) and King of the Khyber Rifles<\/strong> (1953), and later Between Heaven and Hell<\/a><\/strong> (1956) and Bernadine<\/a><\/strong> (1957). Her comments add some personal details to being a Fox contract star, and both her and Tamblyn recall their impressions of Lana Turner\u2019s boyfriend Johnny Stompanato<\/a>, who was stabbed to death by her daughter Cheryl Crane the night of Peyton<\/strong>\u2019s premiere party.<\/p>\n

Hope Lange\u2019s resilient ing\u00e9nue persona served her well in The Young Lions<\/a> <\/strong>(1958), but her standout roles for Fox remain the career woman drama The Best of Everything<\/a><\/strong> (1959), and \u00a0Elia Kazan’s underrated\u00a0Wild in the Country <\/strong>(1961).<\/p>\n

Director Mark Robson had already become of Fox\u2019s most bankable directors, especially with large casts set in foreign locations. The Inn of the Sixth Happiness<\/a><\/strong> (1958) was based on another best seller, From the Terrace<\/a><\/strong> (1960) smolders with sex (and recasts Leon Ames as a bullying industrialist father), Nine Hours to Rama<\/strong> (1963) was centered around the assassination of Ganhdi, The Prize<\/strong> (1963) was all soap opera, and Von Ryan\u2019s Express<\/strong> (1965) featured Frank Sinatra in another strong WWII caper-styled action-drama.<\/p>\n

As Carroll notes, with Valley of the Dolls<\/strong> (1967), Robson may have intended to produce another taboo-bashing drama sourced from the explosive novel by Jacqueline Susann, but its infamy didn\u2019t help the aging director, and although his knack for big productions was never in dispute, Earthquake<\/strong> (1974) was no feather in the cap nor career booster, and he died during production of Avalanche Express <\/strong>(1979).<\/p>\n

Grace Metalious published the novels The Tight White Collar <\/strong>(1961) and No Adam in Eden<\/strong> (1963), but it was Fox who paid her to pen a treatment for what became Return to Peyton Place<\/strong>, which Carroll states in 1959 was the first novel inspired by a film treatment. Peyton Place<\/strong>\u2019s legacy resides in the 1957 film, the 1961 sequel<\/a>, the 1964-1969 TV series starring Dorothy Malone, Mia Farrow, and Ryan O\u2019Neal; and two TV movies inspired by her characters:\u00a0Murder in Peyton Place <\/strong>(1977) and Peyton Place<\/strong>: The Next Generation <\/strong>(1985), both of which starred Malone.<\/p>\n

An excellent chronicle of the novel\u2019s creation, impact, and Metalious\u2019 rather tragic life appears in this\u00a0Vanity Fair<\/a>\u00a0article from 2006.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2017 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —\u00a0Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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