Copyright 4 May 1961 by Jerry Wald Productions and Associated Producers, Inc. Released through 20th Century-Fox. New York opening simultaneously at the Paramount and the Normandie: 5 May 1961. U.S. release: 5 May 1961. U.K. release: 25 June 1961. 122 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: The news that Allison MacKenzie (Carol Lynley) has received a telephone call from New York accepting her first novel, spreads rapidly through the small town of Peyton Place. Those not on "the grapevine" are soon informed by a bubbling Allison who joyously shouts her success to the rooftops as she rushes to her mother's dress shop.
NOTES: Jeff Chandler's second-last film. He died on 17 June 1961. This film was released posthumously in the U.K. and Australia.
VIEWER'S GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: One of the few films of the CinemaScope era that I didn't see on its original release — and frankly that I didn't want to see. José Ferrer is not one of my favorite directors. Even "The Great Man" (1956), though well acted from a forceful script, is drearily directed in a stolidly unimaginative television style. "Return to Peyton Place" continued this tradition.
As for the players, they don't interest me overmuch. True, Mary Astor contributes a convincing performance, but Carol Lynley, Jeff Chandler and the rest hardly inspire confidence.
The lead character writing a book is such a hoary old catalyst for a plot, I'm amazed the script even got so far as a producer's desk. And Ronald Alexander, the author of "Holiday for Lovers", is a name that hardly inspires confidence.
I'm afraid "Return to Peyton Place" rates as an exploitation film pure and simple, shot on the comparative cheap on a Hollywood sound stage. I understand that not a single one of the players from the original "Peyton Place" is represented here. What we have is a comparatively second-rate cast enacting a third-rate script on a fourth-rate budget.
You'd think this mediocre movie would have put paid to the commercial viability of "Peyton Place" — but you'd be forgetting TV and its insatiable appetite!
SYNOPSIS: The news that Allison MacKenzie (Carol Lynley) has received a telephone call from New York accepting her first novel, spreads rapidly through the small town of Peyton Place. Those not on "the grapevine" are soon informed by a bubbling Allison who joyously shouts her success to the rooftops as she rushes to her mother's dress shop.
NOTES: Jeff Chandler's second-last film. He died on 17 June 1961. This film was released posthumously in the U.K. and Australia.
VIEWER'S GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: One of the few films of the CinemaScope era that I didn't see on its original release — and frankly that I didn't want to see. José Ferrer is not one of my favorite directors. Even "The Great Man" (1956), though well acted from a forceful script, is drearily directed in a stolidly unimaginative television style. "Return to Peyton Place" continued this tradition.
As for the players, they don't interest me overmuch. True, Mary Astor contributes a convincing performance, but Carol Lynley, Jeff Chandler and the rest hardly inspire confidence.
The lead character writing a book is such a hoary old catalyst for a plot, I'm amazed the script even got so far as a producer's desk. And Ronald Alexander, the author of "Holiday for Lovers", is a name that hardly inspires confidence.
I'm afraid "Return to Peyton Place" rates as an exploitation film pure and simple, shot on the comparative cheap on a Hollywood sound stage. I understand that not a single one of the players from the original "Peyton Place" is represented here. What we have is a comparatively second-rate cast enacting a third-rate script on a fourth-rate budget.
You'd think this mediocre movie would have put paid to the commercial viability of "Peyton Place" — but you'd be forgetting TV and its insatiable appetite!