I know a place, a magical place, called 'Peyton Place' ...
Oct 5, 2018 23:55:48 GMT
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Post by petrolino on Oct 5, 2018 23:55:48 GMT
'Peyton Place' is one of the most influential melodramas of the 1950s. Director Mark Robson studied the cinematic tableaux style to shoot this compositional picture with great artistry, evoking the shocking portraits of Tod Browning as well as a cornucopia of American small town art. The film was a box-office success that later proved to be popular in France and Italy, gaining cult status in Spain and Portugal.
Lana Turner prepares backstage ...
"The quintessential small-town movie of the decade, sort of an ideological summation, was undoubtedly Mark Robson’s Peyton Place, based on Grace Metallius’s best-selling novel.
The commercial appeal of Peyton Place was immense, grossing in domestic rentals over $11 million. The film was nominated for nine Oscars, though won none; most of the awards that year went to David Lean’s “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” its competitor in the Oscar contest.
The success of the first film led to a sequel, “Return to Peyton Place,” in 1961, with Eleanor Parker in the role of Lana Turner, and to a long-running TV series, with the young Mia Farrow in the role that Diane Varsi had made memorable in 1957. When Americans think of a typical small-town movie, Peyton Place is likely to be their first choice, and with good reasons: This melodrama captured better than other films the narrative conventions and value elements of small-town films. Peyton Place is arguably one of the best small-town films ever made in Hollywood, blending together the thematic and stylistic elements to form a coherent work. Metallius’s novel was scandalous in its frank revelations about life in a New Hampshire town at the end of the Depression. The secret of the book and film’s success was that it dealt with sexual and social taboos seldom portrayed in a Hollywood film before. The film went one step further than the 1942 shocker, “Kings Row,” with just about every controversial issue touched upon: illegitimacy, rape, murder, suicide, abortion. Fortunately, the book was adapted to the screen by John Michael Hayes, a good writer who did some wonderful scripts for Hitchcock (including “Rear Window”). Hayes actually improved on the book, “laundering” the story and trimming its unnecessary cliches."
The commercial appeal of Peyton Place was immense, grossing in domestic rentals over $11 million. The film was nominated for nine Oscars, though won none; most of the awards that year went to David Lean’s “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” its competitor in the Oscar contest.
The success of the first film led to a sequel, “Return to Peyton Place,” in 1961, with Eleanor Parker in the role of Lana Turner, and to a long-running TV series, with the young Mia Farrow in the role that Diane Varsi had made memorable in 1957. When Americans think of a typical small-town movie, Peyton Place is likely to be their first choice, and with good reasons: This melodrama captured better than other films the narrative conventions and value elements of small-town films. Peyton Place is arguably one of the best small-town films ever made in Hollywood, blending together the thematic and stylistic elements to form a coherent work. Metallius’s novel was scandalous in its frank revelations about life in a New Hampshire town at the end of the Depression. The secret of the book and film’s success was that it dealt with sexual and social taboos seldom portrayed in a Hollywood film before. The film went one step further than the 1942 shocker, “Kings Row,” with just about every controversial issue touched upon: illegitimacy, rape, murder, suicide, abortion. Fortunately, the book was adapted to the screen by John Michael Hayes, a good writer who did some wonderful scripts for Hitchcock (including “Rear Window”). Hayes actually improved on the book, “laundering” the story and trimming its unnecessary cliches."
- Emanuel Levy, Cinema 24/7
"With its fixation on the scandal, vice and hypocrisy lying beneath the manicured façade of small-town America, the bare bones of 'Twin Peaks' can be found in Mark Robson’s adaptation of Grace Metalious’ sensationalist 1956 novel. During the show’s development stage, Lynch and Frost hosted a private screening of the film and, according to Lynch’s agent Tony Krantz: “It was off of that screening that they came up with this world.” The film even featured Russ Tamblyn, who would go on to play Dr Jacoby in the show.
The novel also spawned a soap opera, which ran from 1964 to 1969, and its impact is evident in both 'Invitation to Love', the soap that appears on TV sets throughout 'Twin Peaks', and in the show’s heightened sense of melodrama. Indeed, melodrama dominates the quotidian in 'Twin Peaks', running from rich Sirkian currents to the fringes of camp, like Mark Robson’s later film 'Valley of the Dolls' (1967). Robson rose to prominence working under producer Val Lewton (another big influence on Lynch) and began his directing career with occult noir 'The Seventh Victim' (1943), which is also alluded to in 'Twin Peaks'."
The novel also spawned a soap opera, which ran from 1964 to 1969, and its impact is evident in both 'Invitation to Love', the soap that appears on TV sets throughout 'Twin Peaks', and in the show’s heightened sense of melodrama. Indeed, melodrama dominates the quotidian in 'Twin Peaks', running from rich Sirkian currents to the fringes of camp, like Mark Robson’s later film 'Valley of the Dolls' (1967). Robson rose to prominence working under producer Val Lewton (another big influence on Lynch) and began his directing career with occult noir 'The Seventh Victim' (1943), which is also alluded to in 'Twin Peaks'."
- Craig Williams, The British Film Institute
"David Lynch's obsession with 'Peyton Place' is understandable and not his alone; Wes Craven cited 'The Bad Seed' (1956) and 'Peyton Place' as transformative texts for subversive horror, John Carpenter referenced it in his original story frame for 'Halloween 2' (1981) and Tobe Hooper launched a fully-fledged homage near the beginning of 'Spontaneous Combustion' (1990)."
- Terence Smith, 'Sweet Suburbia'
Hope Lange & Lana Turner
Terry Moore & Barry Coe
'On Location In Peyton Place' - A Film by Willard Carroll
