Diagonaldi
Very well executed
Sexyloutak
Absolutely the worst movie.
Maleeha Vincent
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
tonaluv
If the only reason (or the no.1 reason) you give a wonderful film sequel a bad review, is because none of the original cast returned - aren't you totally missing the point? This is a great film with with a great cast and a good message against bigotry, racism, censorship, hypocrisy and small town insular small mindedness. I enjoyed it immensely and recommend you watch it!
mark.waltz
It certainly isn't the old fuddy duddys of Peyton Place, the Vermont town where scandal is still rocking them years after a young girl killed the stepfather who raped her. Like Miss Gulch of "The Wizard of Oz", society seems to be run by the domineering Mrs. Carter (Mary Astor), a vindictive widow who not only despises her son Ted's (Brett Halsey) new wife (Luciana Paluzzi) but uses Selena Cross (Tuesday Weld), the subject of that scandal to try and drive a quick wedge between them all the while going out of her way to prevent a reunion between the girl from the wrong side of the tracks and her spoiled son. Sitting back and watching is Constance McKenzie Rossi (Eleanor Parker) whose daughter Allison (Carol Lynley) has gone off to New York to prepare to have her book published. Influenced by the publisher (Jeff Chandler) to re-write and add more truth to the fictionalized tale of what happened years ago, Allison creates a new scandal and eventually her step-father, principal Mike Rossi (Robert Sterling) is fired for adding the book to the school library and balking at the board's demands that it be removed.The veteran Mary Astor dominates the film with her strong performance as the nasty Roberta, a woman so hard that she has no qualms about destroying her own son rather than see him happy with a woman other than herself. This is an ironic role for Astor who in real life had her own share of scandals which she wrote about in a scandalous diary. The role of Constance has been turned into a supporting one for the veteran Parker (who has recently passed away as of this writing) and is not nearly as flashy as what Lana Turner played in the original. She has one scene with Lynley that is practically identical to one between Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth in "Mildred Pierce". Director Jose Ferrer may not physically appear but his voice is very apparent as one of the minor characters.A beautiful song by Rosemary Clooney brings out the lushness of the landscape (set between Thanksgiving and Christmas) and appropriately sets up the melodrama. There's one truly strange scene which is never resolved between Selena and the ski instructor (Gunnar Hellström) where Selena all of a sudden flashes back to the rape and reacts as strongly as if she had been taken back in time. The movie is far from perfect, and while equally as much of a guilty pleasure as the original, it is missing the strong story detail of the original. A fascinating visual of Allison arriving in New York by train is followed by a detailed view of a New York publishing house that leads to many telling facts of that industry that may seem laughable now that there are too few publishing houses for every ambitious writer, and far too few actual books being released.
willrams
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
denis-11
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.
