Return to Peyton Place

Compared with the original and it's brilliant cast, this sequel is a bit of a mess. Too much of Miss Lynley goes to New York and falls for very bland Jeff Chandler. Who cares. Also, the lack of a kindly Dr. (Lloyd Nolan in the first) strips the town of it's heart.

But, on the positive side, Mary Astor is terrific as the ultimate soaper opera version of the evil, possessive, rich, self appointed queen-of-the town. Some great verbal sparing with her new daughter-in-law. And even in defeat, her final, dignified speech is frighteningly prophetic 35 years later. I watch a lot of movies, and this performance took my breath away. Wow!!!!! She is to Soap Operas villains what Alan Rickman is to Action villains.

Lacking the better cast and production of the original, RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE is only a mediocre movie. In this sequel, Allison MacKenzie (CAROL LYNLEY) has written a novel about the citizens of her hometown, many of whom are less than thrilled. While Allison is in New York finalizing the publication of her work she falls for married publisher Lewis Jackman (JEFF CHANDLER). Back home,Allison's stepfather school principal Mike Rossi (ROBERT STERLING) is being threatened with removal from his post by schoolboard trustee Roberta Carter (MARY ASTOR) if he dares to stock Allison's book in the high school library. Roberta is also busy trying to destroy her son Ted's (BRETT HALSEY) marriage to his new bride Raffaella (A pre THUNDERBALL LUCIANNA PALUZZI). An additional concern for Roberta is keeping the town incest rape victim Selena (TUESDAY WELD), who is also the centerpiece of Allison's novel, away from son Ted. The characters of Allison and her mother Constance (ELEANOR PARKER) were the mainstays in the original. Here they become almost secondary when you watch MARY ASTOR wipe the floor with everyone in this film. Nobody can stare you down like ASTOR ! Nor can anyone in this movie match her subtle gestures or command. Telling his mother that his bride is a nice girl after she has insinuated differently, ASTOR adds, "Maybe it's the way she dresses." LYNLEY is over dramatic after her first 20 minutes. CHANDLER comes across as a dullard. WELD holds her own fairly well, except for an over the top semi flashback scene with new ski instructor boyfriend Nils (GUNNAR HELSTROM), where she proceeds to get hysterical and belt him with a fireplace poker. Veteran PARKER doesn't have much to work with here, but does admirably. PALUZZI is beautiful, but no match for sparring partner ASTOR. Sometimes you're better off not seeing what became of your favorite characters.

The sequel to the fifties blockbuster ,it's much more modest in scope and in ambition and its ending is so predictable it does not equal the first episode.Constance McKenzie (Lana Turner is replaced by Eleanor Parker) is no longer the central character but one must say there is no more central character.There are about three plots which could be depicted as "the book Alison wrote" "Ted and his over possessive mom" and "Will Selena be an outcast for all her life?" .All these plots meet in the end as Alison's stepfather stands in great danger of being discharged ,cause he put his stepdaughter's more or less autobiographical "work" in his high school library.Lucianna Paluzzi ,who plays the unfortunate daughter-in-law ,is a future James Bond Girl ( one of the best villains ,Fiona Volpe, in "Thunderball")

"Peyton Place" fans might be interested but the others had better choose the 1957 original work .

Not as sensational as the great Metalious' novel based upon a small New England town with all it's small talk, and nasty inuendos, but it holds it's own with fine performances of Mary Astor, who really steals the show as the embittered mean old lady who spoils things for others. Cast includes Carol Lynley as Allison Mackenzie who writes her book; Jaff Chandler, as the publicist; Eleanor Parker as Connie; and Tuesday Weld as Selena Cross. I give it 6/10

1. You get to see Robert Crane of Hogan's Heroes in an "Ed McMahon" type role to somebody else doing a "Johnny Carson". Actually he's acting more like Jack Paar.

2. The first 45 minutes of the movie take place on what seems to be two days before thanksgiving. Then on thanksgiving morning, they show a scene of New York at dawn - and the streets are totally deserted!!!!

3. You get to see this 1960 era turkey as a prop and boy, were turkeys skinny back before corporate farming took over.

4. Everything was so wholesome back then. Except when a woman (the Italian actress) has an unwanted pregnancy. Then she tries to lose it by having a skiing accident because abortions were illegal back then, silly.

5. I've been to Camden, Maine, several times, and the locals told me that they shot none of this movie up there (they filmed the original peyton place there in 1956).

6. Peyton Place was set in 1941-43; this movie never sets a year but if you figure by the fact that the young lawyer just got through law school and that takes 7 years from the start of college, and he was in the war until 1945, that would make this about 1952 I guess. Or maybe its supposed to be current with the release date and be 1961; they never explain this.

7. There is nothing said about several of the characters of the earlier movie that had prominent roles (such as the town doctor and Allison's boyfriend). Why are two such good looking girls still unmarried during that era anyway? Obvious plot loopholes.

8. This movie has an old fashioned look and feel to it even for 1960-61 standards. Within 3-4 years clothing, hairstyles, speech, and mannerisms were significantly different. It's like a time capsule movie of a small town America just before all the crappy changes that took place in the 1960s.

9. It has a really good ending. I found myself actually siding with the old biddy who is singlehandedly trying to enforce the old Puritan moral code of her era against the will of apparently the entire rest of the town, who want to change with the times and let everybody do their own thing. She walks out of the town hall meeting in silence and totally defeated; terrific symbolism, and almost supernaturally prophetic in what actually happened across the country over the rest of the decade.

10. Last but not least, the man who plays the character "Dexter" (he has about 1 line; he is a school board member who is a weak character and the old biddy uses him as a supporter)...this guy was on a lot of the old three stooges shorts. He always played a bad guy, and I've never seen him on any other serious movie.