To me, this movie is perfection.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Copyright 4 May 1961 by Jerry Wald Productions and Associated Producers, Inc. Released through 20th Century-Fox. New York opening simultaneously at the Paramount and the Normandie: 5 May 1961. U.S. release: 5 May 1961. U.K. release: 25 June 1961. 122 minutes.SYNOPSIS: The news that Allison MacKenzie (Carol Lynley) has received a telephone call from New York accepting her first novel, spreads rapidly through the small town of Peyton Place. Those not on "the grapevine" are soon informed by a bubbling Allison who joyously shouts her success to the rooftops as she rushes to her mother's dress shop. NOTES: Jeff Chandler's second-last film. He died on 17 June 1961. This film was released posthumously in the U.K. and Australia.VIEWER'S GUIDE: Adults.COMMENT: One of the few films of the CinemaScope era that I didn't see on its original release — and frankly that I didn't want to see. José Ferrer is not one of my favorite directors. Even "The Great Man" (1956), though well acted from a forceful script, is drearily directed in a stolidly unimaginative television style. "Return to Peyton Place" continued this tradition. As for the players, they don't interest me overmuch. True, Mary Astor contributes a convincing performance, but Carol Lynley, Jeff Chandler and the rest hardly inspire confidence.The lead character writing a book is such a hoary old catalyst for a plot, I'm amazed the script even got so far as a producer's desk. And Ronald Alexander, the author of "Holiday for Lovers", is a name that hardly inspires confidence.I'm afraid "Return to Peyton Place" rates as an exploitation film pure and simple, shot on the comparative cheap on a Hollywood sound stage. I understand that not a single one of the players from the original "Peyton Place" is represented here. What we have is a comparatively second-rate cast enacting a third-rate script on a fourth-rate budget.You'd think this mediocre movie would have put paid to the commercial viability of "Peyton Place" — but you'd be forgetting TV and its insatiable appetite!

After reading a feature article about Grace Metalious (the 1950's "Pandora in blue jeans") in the Baltimore Sun a few years ago, I read "Peyton Place" twice and then watched both the original film and this sequel. I'd seen the latter in the theater when it first came out and it's funny what time and your own experiences can do to an old film like "Return." Having become a writer myself, I was fascinated by Jeff Chandler as the editor who tells Allison MacKenzie what it takes to become a real writer, not just a talented kid with an idea. Chandler's constant reference to a great editor (I suspect the man he refers to was based on a real-life editor) who MADE such talented wannabes into writers by giving their books shape and direction and Chandler's tutelage of Allison made "Return to Peyton Place" fascinating to me. Fans of the original "Peyton Place" will have to adjust to the change of cast, but this sequel has its own strong performers, like Mary Astor as a domineering mother and Carol Lynley, her beauty in full bloom and quite competent as Allison. I thought Gunnar Helstrom also stood out and this entire effort is worth a look.

Lacking the better cast and production of the original, RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE is only a mediocre movie. In this sequel, Allison MacKenzie (CAROL LYNLEY) has written a novel about the citizens of her hometown, many of whom are less than thrilled. While Allison is in New York finalizing the publication of her work she falls for married publisher Lewis Jackman (JEFF CHANDLER). Back home,Allison's stepfather school principal Mike Rossi (ROBERT STERLING) is being threatened with removal from his post by schoolboard trustee Roberta Carter (MARY ASTOR) if he dares to stock Allison's book in the high school library. Roberta is also busy trying to destroy her son Ted's (BRETT HALSEY) marriage to his new bride Raffaella (A pre THUNDERBALL LUCIANNA PALUZZI). An additional concern for Roberta is keeping the town incest rape victim Selena (TUESDAY WELD), who is also the centerpiece of Allison's novel, away from son Ted. The characters of Allison and her mother Constance (ELEANOR PARKER) were the mainstays in the original. Here they become almost secondary when you watch MARY ASTOR wipe the floor with everyone in this film. Nobody can stare you down like ASTOR ! Nor can anyone in this movie match her subtle gestures or command. Telling his mother that his bride is a nice girl after she has insinuated differently, ASTOR adds, "Maybe it's the way she dresses." LYNLEY is over dramatic after her first 20 minutes. CHANDLER comes across as a dullard. WELD holds her own fairly well, except for an over the top semi flashback scene with new ski instructor boyfriend Nils (GUNNAR HELSTROM), where she proceeds to get hysterical and belt him with a fireplace poker. Veteran PARKER doesn't have much to work with here, but does admirably. PALUZZI is beautiful, but no match for sparring partner ASTOR. Sometimes you're better off not seeing what became of your favorite characters.

1. You get to see Robert Crane of Hogan's Heroes in an "Ed McMahon" type role to somebody else doing a "Johnny Carson". Actually he's acting more like Jack Paar.2. The first 45 minutes of the movie take place on what seems to be two days before thanksgiving. Then on thanksgiving morning, they show a scene of New York at dawn - and the streets are totally deserted!!!!3. You get to see this 1960 era turkey as a prop and boy, were turkeys skinny back before corporate farming took over.4. Everything was so wholesome back then. Except when a woman (the Italian actress) has an unwanted pregnancy. Then she tries to lose it by having a skiing accident because abortions were illegal back then, silly.5. I've been to Camden, Maine, several times, and the locals told me that they shot none of this movie up there (they filmed the original peyton place there in 1956).6. Peyton Place was set in 1941-43; this movie never sets a year but if you figure by the fact that the young lawyer just got through law school and that takes 7 years from the start of college, and he was in the war until 1945, that would make this about 1952 I guess. Or maybe its supposed to be current with the release date and be 1961; they never explain this.7. There is nothing said about several of the characters of the earlier movie that had prominent roles (such as the town doctor and Allison's boyfriend). Why are two such good looking girls still unmarried during that era anyway? Obvious plot loopholes.8. This movie has an old fashioned look and feel to it even for 1960-61 standards. Within 3-4 years clothing, hairstyles, speech, and mannerisms were significantly different. It's like a time capsule movie of a small town America just before all the crappy changes that took place in the 1960s.9. It has a really good ending. I found myself actually siding with the old biddy who is singlehandedly trying to enforce the old Puritan moral code of her era against the will of apparently the entire rest of the town, who want to change with the times and let everybody do their own thing. She walks out of the town hall meeting in silence and totally defeated; terrific symbolism, and almost supernaturally prophetic in what actually happened across the country over the rest of the decade. 10. Last but not least, the man who plays the character "Dexter" (he has about 1 line; he is a school board member who is a weak character and the old biddy uses him as a supporter)...this guy was on a lot of the old three stooges shorts. He always played a bad guy, and I've never seen him on any other serious movie.