Murder in Peyton Place

Well I must give this film a positive review for being both entertaining and gutsy. How many 90 minutes movies have featured triple digit characters and 30+ ongoing plots? I mean successfully?

Those numbers are not exaggerations! That's the real number of characters and ongoing plots for this movie! Similar to 'These Are The Damned' and 'Scream and Scream Again' which featured three seemingly totally unrelated plots and characters which converge for the climax, this movie boldly has many many many many many many many more.

All these plots revolve around the small Californian town of Peyton Place. First we're introduced to a married couple running and hospital and then it expands to the lives of their multiple ex spouses, and their ex spouses' multiple ex spouses, and their multiple ex spouses' multiple ex spouses' siblings, parents, and kids and their friends and so forth.

That wasn't an exaggeration! That's the way it really goes. Almost every character over the age of 30 has at least two ex spouses! And some have more!

The main focus is on the fiery auto deaths of two characters we've lost track of in all the multiple ex spouses. Seriously! I've seen this movie twice and I still don't know whom died! But at least we know they're related to the other 98 characters. How couldn't they be? Everyone in Peyton Place changes spouses like socks.

Their deaths are ruled accidents until a deep cover up is exposed at the hospital. An evil corporation New Star is buying up the town and as a result every business including town hall is corrupt.

So investigating the murders and New Star's motive become the focal point. But the movie is STILL THROWING IN NEW CHARACTERS AND PLOTS! More lovers and ex lovers, a cop sleeping with an underage girl and someone trying to blackmail them, a hippie do gooder and his murder, a psycho stalker and his violent past and his mother trying to cover it up and being blackmailed for her cover up. Then Stella Stevens' and her flashbacks and her young murderous lover with the killer attack dogs and her motives for revenge by controlling the town water supply and cutting jobs at the mill and...

Alright, I could go on all day but seriously I did not make up any of these plot points. They're all real and they really all do come together at the end.

It's as if a someone took an entire year of 'All My Children' and turned it into a 90 minute movie so I really have to give the film makers credit for keeping the plot together.

The big question is why have so many on going characters and plots other than for the simple challenge of doing so. Like the novelists who write entire books without ever using the letter "T" just to prove it can be done.

If their intent was just to tell the story of a small town being bullied by a big corporation, about 80 of the 100 characters could have been eliminated. This formula might have worked better as a mystery the audience is dying to know the answer to like the two films I mentioned. Here, there is no mystery. We see Stella Stevens plotting and controlling everything from her hotel room.

Definitely worth a watch just to admire the fact that someone wrote a story with 100 characters and 30 ongoing plots for a 90 minute movie. That's talent.

Stella Stevens plays the Lee Grant character from the series. She comes back for revenge on those who wronged her family. Fun, trashy and camp rolled into one! A copy is on YouTube.

This TV-movie sequel to the popular nighttime version of "Peyton Place" doesn't follow any version accurately, but it's clearly meant to continue the nighttime serial which ran from 1964-69, and ignore the more recently departed "Return to Peyton Place" 1972-74 daytime series. A quartet of original cast members are back in town - Dorothy Malone (as Constance MacKenzie Carson), Ed Nelson (as Michael "Mike" Rossi), Christopher Connelly (as Norman Harrington) and Tim O'Connor (as Elliot Carson). This is a haphazard, cheap affair, compared to any prior "Peyton Place" standard...

Dangling, lesser-watched story lines like Dr. Rossi's trial and engagement with Marsha Russell are understandably cast adrift. Martin Peyton's fortune is said to be sensibly divided between Rodney, Norman, Steven and Betty. But nobody, not even Steven Cord himself, remembers how he is a Peyton. Martin's grandson, Steven is referred to as a "cousin" by Joyce Jillson (as Jill Smith Rossi Harrington); her psychic powers are obviously on the fritz. Probably because Pat Morrow was unavailable, Ms. Jillson comes back as Norman's second wife, and she has big new "trailer park" family...

The story involves a former resident returning for revenge, and the car crash of two popular cast members. Unlike many in the supporting cast, the vengeful character was a part of the old series; she seemed at peace when she originally left town. The popular couple getting on the wrong side of a car accident are familiar. The young woman's disappearance was unsolved, while her companion recovered from his motorcycle accident, married Betty and left for Boston. The substitute cast and new faces are fine, but seek out the far superior, "Peyton Place: The Next Generation" (1985).

**** Murder in Peyton Place (10/3/77) Bruce Kessler ~ Ed Nelson, Stella Stevens, Christopher Connelly, Joyce Jillson

However unrealistic, the premise of this murder melodrama provides an interesting twist on the motive of revenge. The film is not a whodunit. We know early on who the villain is. Instead, the plot follows multiple, and I do mean multiple, characters and subplots in a small American town.

The viewer almost needs some kind of cheat sheet to keep track of all the people, and how they are connected to each other. Forget deep characterization. They're all just stick figures in service to the story's premise.

The script is talky and highly melodramatic. Most scenes take place indoors, on sets. As a result, many of the scenes mimic then-current television soap operas. Of course, that's basically what the original "Peyton Place" was, at least that is my understanding. Dialogue in "Murder in Payton Place" is generally dry and hackneyed, again reminiscent of daytime soap operas.

Casting is okay. But acting seems stilted and over-rehearsed. Photography is about what one would expect for a typical made-for-TV movie. Background music is highly manipulative.

Despite the poor script, the cheesy sets, and melodramatic acting, the premise and mystery element held my attention, barely, given my added patience and my failure to find any other film available for watching at the time.

I was stumbling through my TV listings recently and found a listing for the movie "Murder in Peyton Place". I decided to tape it because I knew it would be a rare find and if I didn't tape it, I wouldn't get the chance to see it again for a very long time.

"Murder in Peyton Place" features some (maybe most) of the original television cast (Dorothy Malone, Ed Nelson, etc.) reprising their roles for the movie, which was broadcast on NBC on October 3, 1977. (The original TV series was broadcast on ABC from 1964 to 1969.) I didn't see the original series (it was before my time), but I heard it was an interesting series and according to some people, it was considered to be the first prime-time dramatic serial on television. ("Dallas" was more popular in the 1980s.)

After taping the movie, I then proceeded to watch it. I find the movie to be quite interesting. It was like you were back in the town you once visited on your TV screens in the '60s.

Anyway, it's a good movie (in my opinion) and if there's a die-hard "Peyton Place" collector out there, he/she should consider adding this movie to their collection. It's something you don't see often nowadays.