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Grace Metalious' explosive best-selling novel is given the Hollywood treatment in 1957's "Peyton Place". Devoid of so much of the nonsense that has been known to permeate other melodramas, "Peyton Place" is a beautifully filmed, effective film that uncovers the hidden scandals of a quaint, New England town. With fine acting, score and cinematography, this screen classic translates well from its literary heritage. And the film's unraveling of the town's secrets is handled well - building up like a ball of snow as each successive scandal is unearthed.

We meet the townspeople from the point-of-view of Allison Mackenzie(Diane Varsi), the sweet and sheltered daughter of Constance(Lana Turner). Constance struggles to be a good mother and community member, while rebuffing the advances of handsome school principal, Michael Rossi(Lee Philips). On the other side of the tracks live Constance's housekeeper whose daughter, Selena(Hope Lange), struggles as a victim of abuse by her own step-father. In the midst of these primary plots are several other tales revolving around sex, love and the war. No one is immune to the reveal of secrets, which have a domino effect all across town.

"Peyton Place" shook the foundation of Hollywood's censorship board by exposing such taboo topics as sexual abuse and abortion, but not once does it come off as exploitative. On the contrary, the film is firmly grounded in emotion and genuine feeling. And while the movie straddles the line of good taste, a plot involving the war effort and its effect on the young men of Peyton Place proves to be profound. Lana Turner does her job well as the repressed mother. In fact, heated passion can be sensed underneath her aloof, icy-cold exterior - a chill factor even more effective 2 years later in "Imitation of Life". And the incredibly good-looking Lee Philip is a perfect match the screen beauty. But it is really with the sensitive performances of Diane Varsi and Hope Lange that this film gains its legs. And Lloyd Nolan cannot be overlooked as the town's warm-hearted doctor. "Peyton Place" could have been a heaving, overblown showcase, but instead made its way into becoming an important melodrama that has stood the test of time.

When I saw "Peyton Place" recently on AMC for the first time, my thought was: "This is it? This is what drove the puritans into a foaming frenzy 42 years ago? There's more filth and dirt in the dumpster!" While it's true that the world has taken more than a few spins since 1957, and while it's true that the film tends to date a bit, "Peyton Place" is still, at it's best, top-notch entertainment.

Lana Turner, in what was, regrettably, her only Oscar-nomination, scores solidly as the pivotal character of Constance McKenzie. Diane Varsi, whose life and career would go out of control soon after (remember "Wild in the Streets?"), is equally compelling as Allyson McKenzie, her daughter. Arthur Kennedy lends his usual understated but powerful presence to the principal heavy of the piece, Lucas Cross, and the young Hope Lange, whom a later generation probably remembers best for TV's "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," gives a solid performance as Selena Cross, the girl with a secret from the wrong side of the tracks. Others in the notable cast include such reliable performers as Lloyd Nolan, Russ Tamblyn, Betty Field, and a two years pre - "Bonanza" Lorne Greene, all turning in fine performances.

If you can, see this film in letterbox, if only for the beautiful Camden, Maine, scenery, beautifully captured by William C. Mellor's cameras. And, if you don't think this film's been influential, look at all it's successors, including the only TV series ever to have been on three times a week during the '60's, and today's "Dawson's Creek" and "Melrose Place." Here's the film that started it all, though, and it's still solid entertainment, especially if you put yourself in a late-'50's mindset while watching it.

Grace Metalious' bestseller comes to the screen with lavish good taste, but the small town scandals depicted are not entirely white-washed. Glossy melodrama directed by Mark Robson allows star Lana Turner to suffer nobly, playing single mother to graduating teenager Diane Varsi, harboring a skeleton in her family closet while being romanced by high school principal Lee Philips (in an appealing performance). Varsi and her friends are all awakening to the joys of boy-girl coupling, unsure about sex and not about to ask their parents for help. Involving and polished, though just a bit stiff or starchy. The courtroom climax (with shopgirl Hope Lange on trial for killing her abusive step-father) is really corny, but fans of the soap genre will be enthralled. Fashioned into a popular television serial starting in 1964. Followed by "Return to Peyton Place" in 1961, which featured none of the talents assembled here. *** from ****

A sheer number of society issues this film covered is staggering, and it was done in warm and kind way, with great scenario and good performances from the actors. The only sad thing is that most of the themes they covered are still taboo and unresolved in 2020. Really enjoyable film, glad I had the chance to watch it!

Peyton Place has all the drama for its day and still remains top entertainment after 60 years. Great acting from a cast that have mostly left us today but they have left behind a magnificent drama from a mesmerising book.

I read Grace Metalious's book which she admitted was a "hurry up" book aimed at getting as much as she could past the contemporary arbiters of public morality. I thought the movie was surprisingly good, thanks to a great cast, direction and cinematography. It could have been a great film, had not Lee Philips been cast as Mike Rossi. Philips could not help that he was not Italian and all that brings to mind. But he always seemed more like a Wasp, which he almost played like a wimp. I'm surprised the Director/Producers did not go for someone like Victor Mature, or Riccardo Montleban who could have carried off the character of Rossi. Even Perry Como had more sex appeal than Philips. The rest of the cast, especially the supporting roles are so good, you almost wonder how Philips got the role. Imagine Gone With the Wind without Gable. It would have been a good, but not great movie.

Peyton Place with Lana Turner is a time capsule of small town Ameicana, without some cliché's which remained for later versions of Peyton place and its TV versions.

The original film also captured the way Americans were affected by the coming of WWII. From rich mill owner to shantytown resident, the war's toll was carefully revealed to the audience much better than the book.

There is plenty of social criticism and hypocrisy to be found in the book and movie. That and not the sex per se, was what made Peyton Place one of Hollywood's better movies that entertained, but also educated. Something they seem unable to perform today.

Peyton Place is a great and realistic observation of human behavior taken in the context of when and where it was written, no matter how shocking truth may appear. After years of medical practice, I have lived many experiences not unlike that of Dr. Swain in this novel/movie. I saw "Peyton Place" for the first time in my late forties as part of a CineClub presentation. I grew up naively in a small North East farm town in the late 50's. My grand uncle was our local Country Doctor. I was frightened if not scandalized by the big city lifestyle when I moved to the city to attend medical school. He assured me that "we" had the same "scandals" in our community, it was just "hidden or kept secret". In all honesty, I had already witnessed some of these issues as they shook my own family of origin. Later, I returned to practice in a rural town. As I got closer to the native citizens, I discovered many secrets, secrets not unlike some of the tragic events that took Peyton Place by storm. As I grew older (and hopefully wiser), I realized that each town has their own "Peyton Place". It's all around us, it's is part of our human nature, part of it is in each one of us. Mrs. Metalious, the author of this great novel, paid the price of her own honesty with her life. This novel and the movie that it is based on, have to be taken in the time context it was created. Unfortunately, many of these events are still taking place around us today. I have witnessed them through my interaction with many patients and friends. Love, lust, passion, ambition, greed, envy... are all basic instincts that drive us through the meanders of life, some leading us to good outcomes others to tragedy. I recently returned from our occupation in Iraq where I was severely injured in combat, ending my career as a physician. I saw the best and also the worst of what man can do to mankind. I witnessed many issues that I saw in Peyton Place, only on a larger scale. Peyton Place bears witness to a part of the world we live in, it is in all of us. The events taking place in her youth were the source of Grace Metalious' novel and shaped the course of her story. I highly recommend this movie, it is part of history, our American history, good or bad. Finally, I greatly appreciate all the viewers that take time to share their opinion about movies with the readers through IMDb's Comments Place. May God or your "Higher Power" bless you all, GLN.

The book "Peyton Place" came out in the early 1950s. It blew off the lid of a small New England town full of rape, murder, sex, abortion, infidelity, suicide etc etc. Even though the town (and residents) were fictitious, this book created an uproar. It was a huge best seller but condemned as utter trash by all book critics and "moral" people everywhere (of course they were buying the book themselves). Now, almost 50 years later, it's considered a great literary novel and taught in colleges!

Hollywood took the book, toned it down considerably, went all the way to Maine to film it and basically gave it Grade A treatment. It has a great cast, a stunning score by Franz Waxman, gorgeous New England photography and moves along at a fast clip. The once racy stuff is very tame by today's standards but it's kind of amusing to watch--the dialogue scene between Diane Varsi and Russ Tamblyn (about sex) is giggle-inducing. An abortion is never called that--it's called "inducing a miscarriage". A rape becomes "forcing himself on her". Still, the main stories in the book come across...and it works very well. The cast really helps.

Lana Turner is just great as Constance MacKenzie--a woman with a deep secret. Lloyd Nolan is perfect as Doc Swain--he even gets the New England accent down right! Arthur Kennedy is downright terrifying as Lucas Cross and Hope Lange is fantastic as his step-daughter. Everybody else (with one exception) is good but the ones mentioned above were the best. The one debit is Diane Varsi--she's TERRIBLE as Alison MacKenzie. Unfortunately, she's the main character. Her face is always blank and her readings are in a monotone. Especially bad are her narrations over the scenery. You see just jaw-droppingly beautiful scenery---and her drab, toneless voice droning on. Still, everything else is so good she's easy to overlook.

OK--it's a soap opera but a VERY good one. The 2 1/2+ hours just flew by. Highly recommended.

In a small apple pie New England town a scandal takes place behind closed doors and is spread by small minded hypocrisy and town gossips that eventually leads to murder.

Based off the once scandalous novel by Grace Metalious, this adaptation by John Michael Hayes makes for perfect 1950s melodrama. Those who like to wallow in the soapy lives of small town conservative America will love this, aided by a good cast and a suitablymelodramatic score by Franz Waxman. It later became a successful TV series in the 1960s and a lesser sequel followed with RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE in 1961.

A hopelessly corny and stodgy piece of 1950s film-making that thinks racy subject matter alone makes it important. Well, it doesn't.

"Peyton Place" is a static adaptation of a scandalous book, filled with a cast of females who all look the same -- as blonde and coiffed as the most stereotypical image of a 50s housewife. Of them, Hope Lange does the best with the material given her, playing a sweet kid with a lousy dad, who rapes and beats her in glorious Technicolor. Arthur Kennedy growls his way through the movie as said dad, providing it with some much-needed testosterone, even if that testosterone is somewhat misdirected. Also technically providing some male hormones to the film, though in much diluted form, is Russ Tamblyn, who plays a shy nerd smitten with the movie's narrator, played by Diane Varsi. And bringing the film its star voltage, Lana Turner delivers an imperious performance as an uptight mom, all pointy breasts and platinum blonde hair.

"Peyton Place" supposedly takes place in the early 1940s, but you'd never know it from the film's production design. The clothes, hairstyles and saturated color are all pure 50s -- in fact, this movie is the kind of hokey 1950s melodrama that later films making fun of the 50s would parody.

Grade: C+

"Peyton Place" was historically very interesting cause it was virtually the first miniseries in movie theaters.After viewing it,you 've got the strange feeling of having been told ten stories or to have seen ten or twelve episodes of a miniseries.

Adapted from a bestseller which spawned a -real-TV miniseries this time- in the sixties,Dorothy Malone and Mia Farrow replacing Turner and Diane Varsi ,it is the granddaddy of the soap opera miniseries we've been seeing for all those years.Classy soap opera indeed.

Although the McKenzie (Turner and Varsi) are in the center of the plot,you can hardly call them "main characters"."Peyton Place" is made of many subplots which interfere or don't.It depicts life in a small provincial town where the main danger is gossips.The fear that" people will talk" is everywhere mainly if ,like Constance ,Serena and her mother you have secrets to conceal.Doctor Matthew Swain 's final speech deals with the talk of the town.

A soap opera maybe ,but one which depicts a not so rosy world: child abuse was not a subject movies often broached in the late fifties.My favorite scene is very short and might seem to some very down to earth: the drunkard's boy licks the home made cakes of the picnic,then stuffs himself with hot dogs and watermelon which he washed down with plenty of cola.This is not a comic relief,it makes you think:this boy is miserable,because ,even if the monster is away,he knows there's a crack in the mirror at home.Psychologically,they call that "compensation".

My favorite character is Russ Tamblyn's.Although many of the problems of PP are dated now,his is still around today: the shy boy,whose mother is over possessive ,who does believe he is "a sissy,a coward" and who thinks he will never know a girl's true love because he is too gauche.There are plenty of them even now.

Peyton Place is no masterpiece but it is really an entertaining film.

Like this?Try these....

Imitation of life Douglas Sirk 1959

Rebel without a cause Nicholas Ray 1955

Later adapted by TV as a long-running soap opera-type drama, you can see why in this lengthy film, adapted from a best-selling novel with enough characters and plot strands for a whole TV series. Made around 1957 but ostensibly set in idyllic New Engand just before America's entry into the Second World War, it seemed obvious to me that the production was almost indistinguishable between the two years, at least until the War Draft occurs late in the film, which besides broadening popular appeal, enables director Robson to thus obliquely critique contemporary society and its mores on attitudes to sex, snobbery and that most popular social subject of the 50's, the so-called "generation gap". Beautifully shot in luminous colour and with a handsome cast, the film would would have worked better if it had a bit less happening - one poor family experiences alcoholism, incest, domestic violence, suicide and murder over the course of a couple of years. It's all a bit unreal and unbelievable but perversely remains gripping viewing even as I realised I shouldn't have been at all. The narrative framing device is one of the goody-goody young characters Alison MacKenzie's reminiscences of her childhood there before the War started and changed all the young folk forever. It does seem a bit Waltons-ish and sentiment does make not entirely unexpected if infrequent appearances along the way. However the last half hour settles down to a terse courtroom scene, the culmination of the incest/suicide/murder elements, with "Bonanza's" Lorne Green impressing as the prosecution counsel, well- written right up until the local doctor takes it on himself to deliver an improbable sermon attacking the town's hypocrisy which of course carries the day. It's a fairly ugly "big message" to the movie viewers as they leave the cinema but also helps to tie up other loose plot ends so that the main characters still standing all get a form of redemption for the future. The acting is good throughout if not exactly deeply felt. Lana Turner gets to look pained throughout as the frigid matriarch Constance McKenzie with her own dark secret but does so with aplomb, Arthur Kennedy tears into his part as the reprobate villain of the piece and Diane Varsi is good as Alison, the town's awakening conscience. I feel guilty for getting so hooked on such an obviously contrived and melodramatic confection, but guilty pleasures are pleasures all the same.

Okay, so I wasn't alive in the 50s. But my father certainly was.

He recommended this movie to me, and I have to say -- I was impressed.

It represents one of the few mainstream films of the era that presented day-to-day life as it really was. Peyton Place is a movie that strips away the candy-coated exterior which surrounds many a 50s film, and shows the raw and flawed lives of people who are struggling with issues that viewers in today's society can still relate to.

Although a different genre, it wasn't until I delved deeper into Film Noir that I discovered more films that presented an edgier and raw window into the world of the 40s and 50s. I appreciate a writer or director that has the guts to risk losing viewers by insisting on honest presentation of culture or events.

This film is worth a look.

I read in the 'trivia' section of this website that Joan Crawford and Pat Hingle were both interested in portraying Constance MacKenzie. I think Pat Hingle would have been an interesting choice for that pivotal role. He and Mike Rossi would have set the screen afire in their lovemaking scenes together. Joan Crawford would have been too old for the part. But Pat Hingle seems just the right age. Few people remember how he oozed with almost feral sexuality back in the 50s. If they ever remake "Peyton Place" I hope they reconsider having Pat Hingle play Constance. I think he was born for the part. All he'd need is a little rouge and some pancake.

Peyton place was partly filmed in camden and rockland, maine...i live in rockland maine and pass by the courthouse that was in the movie almost everyday. Camden was a stand in for the small new england town and is very beautiful and looks about the same today. Camden is only a few miles from where i live in rockland. I seen the movie peyton place several times and enjoy it very much and it is fun to reconize some of the places in the movie...the people who live in these small towns have many secrets....another note the film in the bedroom was filmed partly in rockland and rockport maine....the coast of maine is a beautiful place and peyton place captured it perfectly.

Interesting, but overwrought, look at 1940s society.

Peyton Place is an effective snapshot of life in the early-1940s: the morals, mores and conventions of the time, and how some of these were made to be broken. Has some engaging characters and interesting commentary on old vs young, women's rights, morality.

However, there are too many threads, too many characters with parallel stories, and these stories don't seem to know when to end. There are plenty of climatic moments in the movie, where usually a movie would have ended. Here, it is just a temporary peak in a long rambling story.

Then we have some unnecessary drama - drama for drama sake. After a while it starts to feel like a soap opera.

Ultimately, an interesting and engaging movie, but much more conciseness and focus were required.

Exceptional, affecting melodrama about small-town life in America. The story is at times a bit tawdry, but it is always intelligent, complex and it is populated with many memorable and realistic characters. They're people to care about. Better yet, the actors portraying them are mostly brilliant. I had some problems with Arthur Kennedy's performance; it's too over-the-top, and not up to the same level of maturity as many of the others. I also thought Lee Philips was weak in a key role. But Lana Turner, Diane Varsi, Russ Tamblyn, Terry Moore, Barry Coe, Mildred Dunnock, Lloyd Nolan, Leon Ames, and Hope Lange give enormously sensitive performances that will live with me for a long time. Especially Ms. Lange, who is just heartbreaking as a young woman who is sexually abused by her alcoholic stepfather (Arthur Kennedy). The story is frank (1950s frank) and intelligent about sex and the way that small towns treat it. I would surely credit director Robson with keeping this film, which could easily have been a disaster, flowing like a gentle stream. It's a rarity that a Hollywood film like this could be so insightful about small-town life. It does have one big narrative problem, and that is that its climax is a trial. It's not often that a climactic trial works well, and there is no exception for Peyton Place. It seems fake, and the lawyers and defendants don't present evidence in an at all believable fashion. And then there's this cringe-inducing third-act speech. It belongs in a lesser film. 9/10.

The Granddaddy of all soap operas, Peyton Place has its place in film and television history. When the steamy best seller by Grace Metalious and film by Jerry Wald and 20th Century Fox were converted into a television series, it set a standard for evening prime time soap operas that some will argue has never been equaled.

Times have surely changed. Set in New England as it is if Peyton Place existed it's now in the vanguard of blue state America. But in 1941 Peyton Place in New England would probably have enjoyed keeping cool with native son Calvin Coolidge and no doubt voted for Hoover, Landon, and Wilkie instead of that radical FDR in the White House.

In this prim and proper New England town it's all about keeping up appearances. Everybody knows everyone so if things aren't quite fitting the America of Norman Rockwell you keep them behind closed doors.

Like Lana Turner never bothering to tell daughter Diane Varsi that she's an out of wedlock child, like poor Russ Tamblyn not being able to relate to the opposite sex in his teen years, like Hope Lange living with a brutal rampaging father in Arthur Kennedy who physically abuses her mother Betty Field and does more than that with her.

Leon Ames as the town's employer, owner of the mill where most of the town works maybe the leading citizen, but the town's moral authority is Lloyd Nolan, a very wise and caring doctor, the kind of small town doctor who's a passing memory.

It's impossible to describe the plot of Peyton Place because there are so many strands in the plot fabric. It all works very well courtesy of screenwriter John Michael Hayes and director Mark Robson. The whole thing is narrated by Diane Varsi as Allison McKenzie who grew up and wrote a book about her home town.

Peyton Place got nine Oscar nominations, but unfortunately lost a lot of awards it was up for to The Bridge On The River Kwai. Lana Turner's one and only nomination came in a year that the Academy voters gave the Best Actress Award to relative newcomer Joanne Woodward. Russ Tamblyn and Arthur Kennedy split the vote and Red Buttons won for Sayonara for Best Supporting Actor and the same thing happened with the Best Supporting Actress with Diane Varsi and Hope Lange splitting for Miyoshi Umeki to win for Sayonara as well.

The Code was still firmly in place and had it not been I think Russ Tamblyn's character would have been more explicitly gay. Here he's a timid young man not comfortable with the opposite sex and not real popular among his own heterosexist males. Then as now, gays are not real comfortable in most small towns.

Still for those who like their big screen soap operas, you'll love Peyton Place, even with changing mores the film holds up well.

In this old fashioned Mark Robson soap opera from Grace Metalious' novel, almost all the characters are desperately horny, but the discreet charm calls for respectability and decorum. Even "the town's tramp" (Terry Moore) becomes a respected widow in war time. This over-rated melodrama is a curiosity for today's generations (if they want to learn –or laugh at- the rewards of restraining their libidos), with Diane Varsi and Hope Lange in star-turning roles. Unfortunately, Varsi had to wait ten years to break the Allison MacKenzie stereotype with "Wild in the Streets", "Bloody Mama" and "Johnny Got His Gun", and Lange never had another good role again (she has so little screen time on "Blue Velvet" that it does not count.)

Episodic, overlong soaper is a compendium of small town clichés and stereotypical characters tastefully done, but also stodgy and overly long. It's episodic nature was ideally suited to a TV series which this material became. The most shocking thing about Peyton Place is that it was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, the same year Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory failed to receive a single nomination in any major category! Mark Robson who gave us enjoyable trash like Valley of the Dolls and Daddy's Gone A-Hunting takes a reverential tone towards the material, and despite the pretty postcard exteriors it plays like a TV series with the whole thing becoming a courtroom drama. There's hardly a genuine emotion anywhere in the film, nor is there any sense of real life going on. The film exists somewhere between Imitation of Life(1959) and The Last Picture Show(1971)without the deliberate heightening of the former and the realism of the latter. And despite an impressive 5 Oscar nominations for acting, the performances are just adequate, and Lee Phillips is the dullest leading man this side of Efram Zimbalist Jr.