It certainly isn't the old fuddy duddys of Peyton Place, the Vermont town where scandal is still rocking them years after a young girl killed the stepfather who raped her. Like Miss Gulch of "The Wizard of Oz", society seems to be run by the domineering Mrs. Carter (Mary Astor), a vindictive widow who not only despises her son Ted's (Brett Halsey) new wife (Luciana Paluzzi) but uses Selena Cross (Tuesday Weld), the subject of that scandal to try and drive a quick wedge between them all the while going out of her way to prevent a reunion between the girl from the wrong side of the tracks and her spoiled son. Sitting back and watching is Constance McKenzie Rossi (Eleanor Parker) whose daughter Allison (Carol Lynley) has gone off to New York to prepare to have her book published. Influenced by the publisher (Jeff Chandler) to re-write and add more truth to the fictionalized tale of what happened years ago, Allison creates a new scandal and eventually her step-father, principal Mike Rossi (Robert Sterling) is fired for adding the book to the school library and balking at the board's demands that it be removed.
The veteran Mary Astor dominates the film with her strong performance as the nasty Roberta, a woman so hard that she has no qualms about destroying her own son rather than see him happy with a woman other than herself. This is an ironic role for Astor who in real life had her own share of scandals which she wrote about in a scandalous diary. The role of Constance has been turned into a supporting one for the veteran Parker (who has recently passed away as of this writing) and is not nearly as flashy as what Lana Turner played in the original. She has one scene with Lynley that is practically identical to one between Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth in "Mildred Pierce". Director Jose Ferrer may not physically appear but his voice is very apparent as one of the minor characters.
A beautiful song by Rosemary Clooney brings out the lushness of the landscape (set between Thanksgiving and Christmas) and appropriately sets up the melodrama. There's one truly strange scene which is never resolved between Selena and the ski instructor (Gunnar Hellström) where Selena all of a sudden flashes back to the rape and reacts as strongly as if she had been taken back in time. The movie is far from perfect, and while equally as much of a guilty pleasure as the original, it is missing the strong story detail of the original. A fascinating visual of Allison arriving in New York by train is followed by a detailed view of a New York publishing house that leads to many telling facts of that industry that may seem laughable now that there are too few publishing houses for every ambitious writer, and far too few actual books being released.
The veteran Mary Astor dominates the film with her strong performance as the nasty Roberta, a woman so hard that she has no qualms about destroying her own son rather than see him happy with a woman other than herself. This is an ironic role for Astor who in real life had her own share of scandals which she wrote about in a scandalous diary. The role of Constance has been turned into a supporting one for the veteran Parker (who has recently passed away as of this writing) and is not nearly as flashy as what Lana Turner played in the original. She has one scene with Lynley that is practically identical to one between Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth in "Mildred Pierce". Director Jose Ferrer may not physically appear but his voice is very apparent as one of the minor characters.
A beautiful song by Rosemary Clooney brings out the lushness of the landscape (set between Thanksgiving and Christmas) and appropriately sets up the melodrama. There's one truly strange scene which is never resolved between Selena and the ski instructor (Gunnar Hellström) where Selena all of a sudden flashes back to the rape and reacts as strongly as if she had been taken back in time. The movie is far from perfect, and while equally as much of a guilty pleasure as the original, it is missing the strong story detail of the original. A fascinating visual of Allison arriving in New York by train is followed by a detailed view of a New York publishing house that leads to many telling facts of that industry that may seem laughable now that there are too few publishing houses for every ambitious writer, and far too few actual books being released.