Peyton Place

Under Mark Robson’s direction, every one of the performers delivers a topnotch portrayal.

Even when it's stiff and staid in moviemaking terms, Peyton Place has every kind of performance working for it, or against it. Over here, there's Turner's gliding charisma; over there, you get the powerful skill of Oscar nominees Varsi and Hope Lange. Through it all, Lloyd Nolan anchors the frothy seas as the sensible, seen-it-all town doctor, the one who knows all and tells some, depending on the needs of the story. [31 Mar 2020, p.C1]

Except that they take a long time at it, Scriptwriter John Michael Hayes and Director Mark Robson construct a drama of personal tensions and incongruities that has something of the irony and terror of the film version of "An American Tragedy."

Director Mark Robson provides striking visual motifs (a carefree run through a forest later becomes fearful flight) and a canny cast mix of veteran and fledgling talent. [07 Feb 1993, p.T51]

Tasteful adaptation of Grace Metalious' best-selling novel detailing the lives and loves of 'ordinary folk' in a small New England town. It comes with its full quota of sex, conspiracy and violence, but the story is told in such circumspect fashion that next to nobody was offended.

This was hot stuff in the mid-’50s, but beneath the sleazy coating covering the film (camp aficionados take note) is an unabashed and moderately retrograde plea for community openness.

Not to be confused with the suggestive, subversive melodramas of Sirk and Minnelli, this is the kind of hypertensive trash that gives melodrama a bad name, cynically tempering its naughty bits with smug moralizing.