Return to Peyton Place

source: Return to Peyton Place

Trailer—Return to Peyton Place

Return to Peyton Place

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!

This sequel to the sturdy and beautifully made "Peyton Place" is not very good. The chief problem is the curious time warp. It appears to take place in 1961, the year the film was made, but the original took place during the Second World War. There is roughly a 15 year time gap, but no one has appeared to age much. Whats going here? The usually reliable Carol Lynley is rather miscast as Allison MacKenzie in an awkward transition role from her previous strong performances in films like "The Light In the Forest", "Blue Denim" and "Holiday For Lovers". Here she plays her first truly adult role, but comes off looking rather frumpy with that awful hairstyle hiding her stunning good looks. Tuesday Weld as Selena Cross suffers much the same fate. Everything appears drab and lethargic. Franz Waxman's score and Mary Astor's mother-in-law from Hell are the prime reasons to watch this disappointment.

This review contains spoilers from the original movie Peyton Place. As a stand alone movie, RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE was okay. What really ticks me off about this movie is how so few of the characters in the original are in this movie. The whole point of a sequel is to find out what happens to the original characters. I want to know what happened with Allison's boyfriend Norman Page after he came home from the war. What happened to Betty Anderson after she and her father-in-law found out that Rodney Harrington had died in the war? But my biggest pet peeve is the way they handled the Selena and Ted affair. In this movie they acted as if they had never been anything more than friends. Well that's a big load of crap! And I don't remember Ted being rich in the first movie. Where did all this fabulous wealth suddenly appear from? The best part of the whole movie was Mary Astor as Mrs. Carter. You just wanted to smack her, she is such a bitch!

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

Anyone who hasn't seen the original film Peyton Place will not be able to comprehend what's happening in Return to Peyton Place. And the journey is hardly worth it. Aspiring writer Carol Lynley writes a steamy novel about the goings on in her prim and proper New England town of Peyton Place. When Jeff Chandler publishes it, tongues start to wag. Carol's stepfather Robert Sterling who is the high school principal puts it in the school library and the local pharisees want his head. It's all been done before and since and better. Interesting that none of the original cast repeated any of their roles from the first film. I think they were asked, read the script and turned it down. If Return to Peyton Place has any value it's because Mary Astor plays a deliciously evil woman, the kind of mother that Danny DeVito wanted to throw from a moving train. Astor overwhelms everyone else the cast. I think they all knew it as well.

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 .

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.