Episodic, overlong soaper is a compendium of small town clichés and stereotypical characters tastefully done, but also stodgy and overly long. It's episodic nature was ideally suited to a TV series which this material became. The most shocking thing about Peyton Place is that it was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, the same year Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory failed to receive a single nomination in any major category! Mark Robson who gave us enjoyable trash like Valley of the Dolls and Daddy's Gone A-Hunting takes a reverential tone towards the material, and despite the pretty postcard exteriors it plays like a TV series with the whole thing becoming a courtroom drama. There's hardly a genuine emotion anywhere in the film, nor is there any sense of real life going on. The film exists somewhere between Imitation of Life(1959) and The Last Picture Show(1971)without the deliberate heightening of the former and the realism of the latter. And despite an impressive 5 Oscar nominations for acting, the performances are just adequate, and Lee Phillips is the dullest leading man this side of Efram Zimbalist Jr.
Review of Peyton Place
