Peyton Place (film)

Less than a month after the novel's release in October 1956, producer Jerry Wald bought the rights from author Grace Metalious for $250,000 and hired her as a story consultant on the film, although he had no intention of actually allowing her to contribute anything to the production.[8] Her presence in Hollywood ensured the project additional publicity, but Metalious soon felt out of place in the film capital. [9] "I regarded the men who made Peyton Place as workers in a gigantic flesh factory," she recalled, "and they looked upon me as a nut who should go back to the farm."[10]

The screenplay, written by John Michael Hayes, omits numerous sexually explicit moments from the novel.[10] The omissions of the novel's more controversial elements was a result of screenwriter Hayes having to contend with the Hays Code, which restricted depictions of content deemed explicit by the U.S. Motion Picture Production Code.

Metalious was horrified by what she deemed a sanitized version of her novel, and was also displeased with the thought of the casting of Pat Boone as Norman Page (the role was eventually given to Russ Tamblyn); she subsequently returned to her home in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.[11] She publicly derided the film, though she eventually earned a total of $400,000 in exhibition profits from it.[11]

Principal photography of Peyton Place began on June 4, 1957.[12] The film's exterior sequences were shot primarily in mid-coastal Maine, mostly in the town of Camden, with additional exteriors filmed in Belfast; Rockland; and Thomaston,[7] as well as Lake Placid, New York.[13] Additional interior photography was completed on film sets in Los Angeles, California.[14] All of Turner's scenes in the film were shot in California.[15]

The film's original score was composed by Franz Waxman, and recorded with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.[10][16] The score was released for the first time on compact disc in 1999.[16] Journalist Graydon Carter in 2016 praised the score as "haunting" and "instantly recognizable even today."[10] The score was recognized by the American Film Institute in 2005 for the AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores, for which it received a nomination.[17]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Franz Waxman.

The film premiered in Camden one day before opening in 24 cities across the U.S. on December 12, 1957.[1][2]

Peyton Place was the second highest-grossing film released in the United States in 1957, and received significant public interest in April 1958, after star Lana Turner's daughter, Cheryl, killed Turner's abusive boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, during a domestic struggle.[18] Though Cheryl was acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide, the press coverage boosted ticket sales for Peyton Place by 32% in April 1958.[19] The film ultimately earned $11 million in domestic rentals[20] (equivalent to $106,129,147 in 2021).

While Peyton Place was a commercial hit, many critics noted that the most salacious elements of the Metalious novel had been whitewashed or eliminated completely.[21] In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther remarked, "There is no sense of massive corruption here." However, he did generally like the film, praising Hope Lange for a "gentle and sensitive performance" and finding Lloyd Nolan "excellent."[22] Variety wrote that the film was "impressively acted by an excellent cast," but noted that "in leaning backwards not to offend, Wald and Hayes have gone acrobatic ... On the screen is not the unpleasant sex-secret little town against which Grace Metalious set her story. These aren't the gossiping, spiteful, immoral people she portrayed. There are hints of this in the film, but only hints."[23] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post wrote "While the four-letter words of the Grace Metalious novel have been adroitly erased, it's easy for one of the apparent few who didn't read the book to see why so many did. There are several strong stories and the characters are sharply drawn. Without these two characteristics the best written novels remain unread."[24] Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times declared the film "probably the most powerful small-town picture ever produced,"[25] and Harrison's Reports praised it as "an absorbing adult drama" that "grips one's attention the whole time it is on the screen, thanks to the sensitive direction and the effective acting of the capable cast."[26]

John McCarten of The New Yorker wrote that the film "makes no attempt to exploit the sensational aspects of the tale it has to tell; on the contrary, it is woefully diffuse, and before it's over—roughly, three hours—boredom has set in like the grippe."[27] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote "Slick and passionless, the film is an expensive and heavily bowdlerised adaptation of Grace Metalious' best-seller," adding that "the film never quite makes up its mind whether to extol small-town America or castigate it."[28] TV Guide wrote "This is the kind of hypertensive trash that gives melodrama a bad name, cynically tempering its naughty bits with smug moralizing. The fact that the film won an 'A' rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency, meaning it was deemed 'acceptable to all,' is a dead giveaway.[29] (In actuality, it was given an "A-III" rating, meaning appropriate only for adults.)[30]

In the intervening years since its release, critics have continued to comment on the film's sterilized screenplay, though journalist Graydon Carter contended in 2016 that, "Despite the movie's almost picture-postcard tone of whimsy, it did manage to retain some of Grace [Metalious]'s finger-pointing—most notably in a stunning montage of duplicitous citizens filing into a myriad of churches, all dressed in their Sunday best."[31]

The film received nine Academy Award nominations and no wins (including nominations for the four supporting performances, which tied a record set by On the Waterfront in 1955. This record later was matched by Tom Jones in 1963, The Last Picture Show in 1971 and The Godfather Part II in 1974). The film's 9 Oscar nominations without a win also tied the record with the film The Little Foxes in 1941. This record was surpassed by the films The Turning Point in 1977 and The Color Purple in 1985 (both films received 11 nominations without a single win).

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released Peyton Place on DVD in 2004, featuring an audio commentary by Terry Moore and Russ Tamblyn, an AMC-produced documentary on the film, and vintage newsreel footage.[35] The film had its debut on Blu-ray in 2017 by Twilight Time, in an edition limited to 3,000 copies.[36] The Blu-ray repurposes the bonus materials from the 20th Century Fox DVD, and adds a new commentary by filmmaker and historian Willard Carroll.[36]