Return to Peyton Place

Return to Peyton Place (1961)

Residents of the small town of Peyton Place aren't pleased when they realize they're the characters in local writer Allison MacKenzie's controversial first novel. A sequel to the hit 1957 film.

Date of release
1961-05-05
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (42)
Runtime
2h 3m
Genres
Drama, Romance
Director
José Ferrer
Collection
Peyton Place Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

Return to Peyton Place is a 1961 American drama film in color by De Luxe and CinemaScope, produced by Jerry Wald, directed by José Ferrer, and starring Carol Lynley, Tuesday Weld, Jeff Chandler, Eleanor Parker, Mary Astor, and Robert Sterling. The screenplay by Ronald Alexander is based on the 1959 novel Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox and is a sequel to their earlier film Peyton Place (1957).

Production

The 1957 screen adaptation of Metalious' first novel had been a critical and commercial success, ranking second at the box office and garnering nine Academy Award nominations. Film rights to the sequel were sold to Fox for $500,000 before a word of the novel had been written. This amount also meant Fox owned the film rights to Metalious' second novel, The Tight White Collar.

Fox wanted Diane Varsi to reprise her role of Allison MacKenzie. However, in March 1959, Varsi announced she was walking out on Hollywood, despite being only two years into a seven-year contract with the studio. "Acting is destructive to me", she said. "I don't see any reason to be made miserable just because other people say I should go on with my career".

In June 1959, Hedda Hopper announced that Margaret Leighton would play a woman who tries to kill her daughter-in-law. Producer Jerry Wald was hopeful that Varsi would play Allison but said Diane Baker was a possible back up. Lana Turner had already passed the role of Constance MacKenzie, which was then offered to Joan Crawford.

In August 1959, Wald announced Varsi was not reprising her role, and that he was planning on replacing her with Anna Maria Alberghetti, with production slated to begin in November 1959. By that time, producer Buddy Adler had already cast Robert Evans as Nils Larsen. Both Alberghetti and Evans were eventually replaced.

While shooting Hound-Dog Man in the fall of 1959, Wald met Carol Lynley. With no announcement of Baker's withdrawal, Wald announced in September 1959 that Lynley was set to star as Allison MacKenzie. Despite rumors that Varsi changed her mind and was signed on after all, Lynley eventually was cast. When Wald was later asked about a possible return of Varsi, he responded: "Ridiculous.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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