Peyton Placeby Anonymous

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July 23, 2004: 'Peyton Place' is the 50s big budget, widescreen precursor to all 60s television soap operas. It's teeming with adultery and bald faced lies set against the backdrop of a small mid-west America town - a place where everybody knows your name and nobody is above a good scandal or torrid piece of gossip. Lana Turner headlines as Constance MacKenzie, the prudish mother of upright and proper teenager, Allison (Diane Varsi). Constance?s neurotic fear of sex masks her own checkered past, one that eventually drives her daughter to distraction. Sensitive to her own values, Allison befriends introvert and sexually repressed, Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn). The two develop a lasting friendship that is temporarily put on ice when a rumor circulates that Norman and Allison were skinny dipping in a nearby lake ? imagine that! Meanwhile, newly appointed high school principal, Mike Rossi (Lee Philips) is in hot pursuit of Constance?s affections. Though Constance thwarts Mike?s initial advances with all the tact and remedy of an ice pick, she can?t help but eventually warm to the heat of desire that exists between them. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or at least the flee bitten dilapidated shack of Nellie (Betty Field) and Lucas (Arthur Kennedy) Cross; Selena Cross (Hope Lange) struggles to ward off the drunken advances of her maniacal stepfather. Selena?s procurement of work in Constance?s dress shop seems like a step in the right direction. Her mother is Constance?s housekeeper. However, Lucas? jealous rage over a budding romance between Selena and Ted Carter (David Nelson) leads to her rape and impregnation. When Selena suffers a miscarriage, also by Lucas? hand, Nellie puts two and two together, come up with four and commits suicide by hanging herself in Allison?s closet. Doc Swain (Lloyd Nolan), the kindly physician who tended to Selena?s miscarriage exiles Lucas from Peyton Place with a signed confession that he threatens to turn over to the authorities. But Lucas can?t help himself. He returns one snowy and unsuspecting eve to ravage Selena again. But this time Selena is ready for him. She murders Lucas and buries the body in the back yard. There?s plenty more sin on tap in town, between fast and easy Betty Anderson (Terry Moore) and Rodney Harrington (Barry Coe), the heir to a textile industry presided over by Rodney?s father (Leon Ames). Mr. Harrington tries everything to thwart their illicit romance, even fabricating an interest on Allison?s part which results in a disastrous graduation dance for all concerned. Eventually, Rodney acquires enough conviction to oppose his father and marry Betty. The movie, considered something of a censorship breakthrough at the time of its general release, is a complete sanitization of the original sin soaked pages from Grace Metalious' novel which included, among other things, incest and sexual perversion. Considered something of a Benedict Arnold in her own home town, Metalious? real life ended tragically at the age of 36 when alcohol addiction caught up with her. Nevertheless, the film still packs one heck of a wallop. Several months following its release, Lana Turner?s own life mirrored the film?s narrative when her daughter, Cheryl Crane murdered her lover, Johnny Stompanado ? the right hand thug of racketeer, Mickey Cohen.