Peyton Place

[Chris B]

David Canary was really sexy and full of muscles. I wasn't expecting all that, but dayum. The man still has such charisma and dominates any scene he's in. His story was good so you have something to look forward to.

Murder is an absolute nightmare and I can't believe it was written by anyone involved with the original series. The entire film was centered around a very memorable character from the original series, but poorly recast. The actor was so important to the role that it fell flat. Of course you have no Alison or Rod, but Betty and Steven were recast and Rita was MIA and they didn't even mention her name when describing where she was. The only people that came back were Connie, Elliot and Norman. Because Rita wasn't around they brought on a random later years character to marry Norman off to which made no sense. It felt hollow and was your typical mystery movie of the week. Didn't feel like Peyton Place at all.

I decided to go ahead and watch TNG and it is really good. Even the things that were re-written don't bother me because it's well executed and I see why they did it now. Barbara Parkins is an absolute goddess. Why didn't another soap pick her up? Watching her she's aged so well and could stand next to Linda Gray (who starred in Murder In PP btw) and Donna Mills and just kill it.

I was worried about color, but the show is so beautiful it didn't bother me. Initially it was very bright and they highlighted color in every way possible. Everyone was wearing bright pastels and the sets really popped. Then I guess something changed and the colors became more neutral and things looked more real, but still very nice.

[Paul Raven]

An excerpt from a 1965 report,Barbara Parkins speaking...

"...at any rate,Barbara suffered so well that her name was added to the co-star creditsafter the 56th episode and her studio and network began thinking of a whole new eries for her,tentavely titled 'The Girl from Peyton Place'around the Betty Anderson chracter, They called me up to Mr Self's office(William Self director of TV activities for 20th Centurt Fox)and I'd done something wrong. Then he told me when I was scared of the responsibility I suppose.But a couple of weeks later,when they called me in to say they were putting the idea on the shelf,for now,I cried.However,Peyton Place will expand from two to three shows next season,and barbara will be an important part of the show.'

Sorry for the typos,computer is playing up.

[EricMontreal22]

Thanks PR! the title screams flop spin off like Girl From UNCLE lol It coulda been maybe an idea to do something like that for the Summer and put PP on hiatus, since the production schedule--particularly 3 eps a week seems to have eventually killed it. (In one of the Paley Center seminars Agnes Nixon of all people talks about that with peyton, how much more time it took cuz it was shot on film, etc)

[Paul Raven]

I wonder why they didn't go to 1 hour weekly.maybe that would have saved the show from the axe.It certainly worked in the 80's.

[EricMontreal22]

It really seems like the thought to do a serial in an hour format was just utterly alien lol

[EricMontreal22]

It was ignored for TNG right?

I found this listing for a tv special on imdb: Peyton Place Revisited (1973) (TV) hosted by Peter Lawford with nearly all the actors returning to talk about the show. I wonder if it might ever pop up somewhere (would make a great DVD bonus)

Couldn't resist, hey? yeah she seems like such a shoe in pick for one of those 80s primetime soaps.

Of course a lot of early colour stuff was done exactly like that0--they used every excuse they could to show as many colours as possible. Can't wait.

[Chris B]

Oh I didn't know about that! In addition to the regular Return To Peyton Place, I'm curious about the primetime episode that show did, the first for any soap. I wonder since that show had just went off the air if the original cast mentioned it on Revisited. Patricia Morrow did both so she could've given first hand knowledge.

[EricMontreal22]

It does seem like they musta brought it up--unless ABC did the special, and told them not to....

[EricMontreal22]

Two Time Magazine articles. (Spoilers in each) The first has interesting points about the writing team.

Television: Triple Jeopardy

Friday, Aug. 20, 1965

Any other TV producer would think his ship had come in if one of his inge nues were piped aboard Frank Sinatra's good ship Southern Breeze. But Paul Monash, executive producer of ABC's Peyton Place, needed Mia Farrow's cruise like a hole in the hull. For one thing, Peyton Place had all the voyeur interest it needed on-screen without any help from off-screen publicity. For another, even before all the headlines from Cape Cod, Peyton Place's ratings were about as high as they could go. "Realistic Escapism." When Peyton Place was first announced for the 1964-65 season, the industry wondered if ABC programming had been taken over by some kind of nut. The network was not only gambling on soap opera in prime time but also doubling the stakes with another innovation—running the untested show two nights a week. But the network reasoned that 1) audiences could be hooked as easily in the evening as in the afternoon by the serial format, and 2) that the U.S., newly caught up in the "romantic escapism" of Ian Fleming, might be similarly ripe for the "realistic escapism" of Grace Metalious. Realism, of course, turned out to be a euphemism for a concentration of sexual adventurism such as no network had ever risked before. In its first season, Peyton Place was so successful that in June the network added a third weekly show, making the schedule Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 9:30 p.m. (E.D.T.). Ever since, even the laggard in the entry was never out of the Top 15, and at one point, the whole trio was bunched into the first five. The trick is if you see one, you have to see them all—all of the series' half dozen crises are mentioned and in tensified in every episode. Though the first Peyton Place was to have the same protagonists and proclivities as Metalious' peeping tome, Producer Monash insisted that the tone would be different. The novel, he says, was "a negativistic attack. Ours is a love affair with the town. The general feeling we have is of people evolving toward the light." But after 102 episodes, there has been little perceptible evolution.

Last week's three chapters, for instance, interwove the multiple subplots without even a glimmer of psychic peace or a fleeting, joyous guffaw. Dr. Vincent Markham, back home after winning "international renown as the Albert Schweitzer of the Andes," was, it turned out, on the brink of divorce because he could not relate to women, and on the road to suicide because of sibling rivalry with a twin brother. The town's most dynamic executive, David Schuster, was feeling trapped at the office and in a sick second marriage that was turning his lovely, congenitally deaf daughter into a willful mute. And even the last nice teen-age girl in town, Allison MacKenzie (Mia Farrow), was at 18 facing Life: Schuster, she learned, was interested in her for more than her baby-sitting services. "Basically Moral." But Monash sees "nothing offensive" in such plotting. "Why don't our critics," he asks, "count up what happens in the three hours King Lear is on the stage?" Not that ABC is really counting (except its audiences). Its prime defense, enunciated repeatedly by Programming Director Adrian Samish, is that "the show is basically very clean and moral, because wrongdoers are punished." For instance, when the richest boy in town gets the daughter of his father's secretary pregnant, he is compelled to marry her. But then the girl herself breaks the code. She has an accidental mis carriage before the wedding but does not tell him and she gets her punishment—the marriage is annulled.

Keeping solemn tab on the retributions, not to mention the whole 32-character plot line, is the responsibility of Peyton Place's "story board." The board, consisting of three senior writers, and aided by a constantly updated chart presentation that probably has no counterpart outside the Pentagon's "war room," lays out each episode. Five junior writers then turn their scenarios into finished scripts. None of the eight writers is over 35; only two earn less than $1,000 a week. Expensive Trappings. But they have to work to stay in that bracket. The cameras grind away on the back lot at 20th Century-Fox in Hollywood filming three half-hour episodes a week—more than the average movie crew shoots in a month. Thus the production is less polished than a feature film and sometimes barely distinguishable from the commercials Nevertheless, should ratings and sponsorship warrant, the staff stands ready for what could be "the next step" —four segments a week. All shows are filmed, and the stockpile is kept at 30. Thus, to cover Mia Farrow's absence at sea last week, Allison had an auto accident and fell into a coma, anxiously watched over by Mom (Dorothy Malone) and Dr. Michael Rossi (Ed Nelson). But because of the backlog, viewers will not see this momentous catastrophe until mid-November. And before Mia embarked, Peyton Place directors forehandedly shot advance footage of her in a comatose state and found a lie-in double who could almost fool Frank. Meantime, Peyton Place's 50 million frequenters have enough else to agonize over. Like whether Allison's father will take over the Clarion, and with it, the collateral duty of "the conscience of Peyton Place." Or if Dr. Markham can save his marriage, not to mention his life. Or if that other subcharacter, Rita Jacks, really is, as she fears, "no good. Joe kissed me, and when he kissed me —for a second, for a minute—I didn't want to stop . . ." Which, ABC trusts, is the way the viewers will continue to feel about Peyton Place.

And from the end of a Dec 1968 article:

"The new programs will fit into scheduling holes opened up by the imminent demise of several series, most of which are less than a year old and never caught on. NBC is dropping The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show. CBS is losing Daktari and Blondie. ABC is dumping The Don Rickles Show, The Ugliest Girl in Town, Journey to the Unknown, The Felony Squad and Operation: Entertainment. The network is also jettisoning The Dick Cavett Show (TIME, March 22), one of TV's most literate daytime programs, which rarely ranked higher than 35th among the 35 daytime shows included in the ratings. But the biggest casualty is likely to be Peyton Place, originally seen on ABC twice a week and at one point increased to three times a week. The five-year-old show has tumbled to the bottom third of the Nielsen rankings of prime-time programs. Next month, it will be cut back to one episode weekly, and by next fall, unless the ratings improve dramatically, it will go off the air for good. The problem is how to find a happy—or even any—ending for all the tangled people and plots of Peyton Place. Executive Producer Paul Monash admits that it will be impossible to "tie up all the story threads. The solution has been proposed to have the Miles family [Negroes, newly arrived] burn down the town." |

[Paul Raven]

Peyton Place Ratings/Competition

Peyton Place ranked in the top 25 shows only in it's first season.

The Thursday edition ranked 9th,the competition being Baileys of Balboa on CBS and Hazel on NBC

The lead in was Bewitched which ranked 2nd and lead out was Jimmy Dean Show which did not make the top 25.

The Tuesday edition ranked 20th.The competition was Petticoat Junction on CBS which ranked 15th and That Was The Week That Was on NBC,which did not place in the top 25.

The lead in was The Tycoon and lead out was The Fugitive which ranked 5th.

For the 2nd season,which added the Friday night episode the competition was

Tues Petticoat Junction(21st) and 2nd 1/2 hour of NBC movie.Lead in was F Troop and lead out The Fugitive.

Thurs CBS Thursday Movie and Mona McKlusky(NBC). Lead in Bewitched(7th) and lead out Long Hot Summer

Fri Smothers Brothers Show(CBS) Mr Roberts (NBC). Lead in Honey West and lead out Jimmy Dean Show.

3rd season

Tues Family Affair (15th) on CBS and 2nd half of Road West on NBC Lead in Felony Squad and lead out Big Valley

Thurs CBS Thursday Movie and Dragnet(NBC) Lead in That Girl and lead out Good Company

4th season

Mon now 8.30 Here's Lucy(9th) and Laugh In (Ist) on NBC Lead in The Avengers Lead out The Outcasts

Wed 8.30 Good Guys on CBS The Virginian NBC (17th) Lead In Here Comes The Brides Lead out Wednesday Movie

[saynotoursoap]

Paul Raven, the You Tube episode to which you referred was posted by me under a different name. It was episode 36. I pulled it because 20th Century Fox emailed me and threatened legal action if it wasn't removed. Due to copyright issues, I have not uploaded additional episodes of the prime-time or daytime version of Peyton Place. Many will notice the Return to Peyton Place promo I uploaded was not identified in any form. It was inserted into an upload featuring promos for two other serials. So far, it has slipped by Fox unnoticed.

[saynotoursoap]

Eric, you asked about the dates for the first 65 episodes:

Episode # 1: Aired 9/15/64:

Episode # 2: Aired 9/17/64:

Episode # 3: Aired 9/22/64:

Episode # 4: Aired 9/24/64:

Episode # 5: Aired 9/29/64:

Episode # 6: Aired 10/1/64:

Episode # 7: Aired 10/6/64:

Episode # 8: Aired 10/8/64:

Episode # 9: Aired 10/13/64:

Episode #10: Aired 10/15/64:

Episode #11: Aired 10/20/64:

Episode #12: Aired 10/22/64:

Episode #13: Aired 10/27/64:

Episode #14: Aired 10/29/64:

Episode #15: Aired 11/5/64:

Episode #16: Aired 11/10/64:.

Episode #17: Aired 11/12/64:

Episode #18: Aired 11/17/64:

Episode #19: Aired 11/19/64:

Episode #20: Aired 11/24/64:

Episode #21: Aired 11/26/64:

Episode #22: Aired 12/1/64:

Episode #23: Aired 12/3/64:

Episode #24: Aired 12/8/64:

Episode #25: Aired 12/10/64:

Episode #26: Aired 12/15/64:

Episode #27: Aired 12/17/64:

Episode #29: Aired 12/24/64:

Episode #30: Aired 12/29/64:

Episode #31: Aired 12/31/64:

Episode #32: Aired: 1/5/1965

Episode #33 - Aired: 1/7/1965

Episode #34 - Aired: 1/12/1965

Episode #35 - Aired: 1/14/1965

Episode #36 - Aired: 1/19/1965

Episode #37 - Aired: 1/21/1965

Episode #38 - Aired: 1/26/1965

Episode #39 - Aired: 1/28/1965

Episode #40 - Aired: 2/2/1965

Episode #41 - Aired: 2/4/1965

Episode #42 - Aired: 2/9/1965

Episode #43 - Aired: 2/11/1965

Episode #44 - Aired: 2/16/1965

Episode #45 - Aired: 2/18/1965

Episode #46 - Aired: 2/23/1965

Episode #47 - Aired: 2/25/1965

Episode #48 - Aired: 3/2/1965

Episode #49 - Aired: 3/4/1965

Episode #50 - Aired: 3/9/1965

Episode #51 - Aired: 3/11/1965

Episode #52 - Aired: 3/16/1965

Episode #53 - Aired: 3/18/1965

Episode #54 - Aired: 3/23/1965

Episode #55 - Aired: 3/25/1965

Episode #56 - Aired: 3/30/1965

Episode #57 - Aired: 4/1/1965

Episode #58 - Aired: 4/6/1965

Episode #59 - Aired: 4/8/1965

Episode #60 - Aired: 4/13/1965

Episode #61 - Aired: 4/15/1965

Episode #62 - Aired: 4/20/1965

Episode #63 - Aired: 4/22/1965

Episode #64 - Aired: 4/27/1965

Episode #65 - Aired: 4/29/1965

[Chris B]

So you do have episodes from the daytime series? I didn't know any existed! How were the recasts on the series? How was the show overall? Did it stack up well as a continuation of the original series? So strange that they'd get upset about one episode, as if they give a damn about Peyton Place or any other soap sitting in their vault. They're not even the ones releasing it to DVD, Shout Factory is! And they're being difficult now that Shout wants to license more episodes.

I do hope when it comes to the DVD releases, if the series ever was released in it's entirety, I hope they follow up with episodes of the daytime series. Maybe it'll be one of those lucky soaps sitting in a vault complete, or hell I'll settle for one or two episodes as bonus features with the two movies. Would be great to see the first week or month of that show to see how they relaunched it.

Edited February 6, 2010 by Chris B

[Chris B]

I'm shocked! Reading an article about TNG and it says that they never attempted contacting Mia Farrow or Ryan O'Neal. Michael Filerman said that even if they were interested they would cost too much so they didn't bother. Kinda disappointed in that. I do think it would've been possible to get Ryan O'Neal back which could've helped get a new series up and running.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=191&dat=19850205&id=DLUuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=li4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6673,3244318

Regardless of Alison and Rod, it was a very satisfying reunion. Most of these pictures are missing something. Either a random assortment of characters returning or the wrong tone or simply an awful story. With this I felt it was an update that stayed true to the series and the story was actually interesting as if it were more episodes of the series. The characters were well written and the final act was pretty amazing. I just wish certain actors (Ruth Warrick, Patricia Morrow and Chris Connelly in particular) did more.

[saynotoursoap]

I have five episodes of Return to Peyton Place. To the best of my knowledge, the series was not wiped. At one point in the 1970's, it was to have been syndicated to Australia's Nine Network along with DOOL, GH, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, and Where the Heart Is. It should be sitting in a vault somewhere, but I would not hold my breath on its dvd release any time soon; the studio was not thrilled with sales of the primetime version.

As for the daytime version, I consider it a fairly good alternative, but only if it is not compared to the ABC series. The best way to approach Return to Peyton Place is to think of it as an alternate reality, sort of like the difference between the various versions of Dark Shadows. In other words, RTPP is not really a continuation of the primetime series. In the daytime version, characters who died, moved away, disappeared, or left never to return were suddenly back. Plot points from the ABC version were ignored. There were too many inconsistencies for RTPP to be a plausible continuation.

I loved the nighttime Peyton Place. Along with Knots Landing, it was one my favourite soaps ever. PP enjoyed a level of quality and intelligence in writing, acting, and directing that RTPP could not possibly achieve. RTPP is excellent as a daytime soap, but alas, it is just that -a soap with soapy twists. I could not see the primetime version having Allison become hooked on drugs and then accused of murdering her new husband, who was in fact his identical twin brother. Nor would Constance have cheated on Eliot and become pregnant with Michael Rossi's child. This is the stuff soap operas are made of, not Emmy-worthy nighttime dramas.

On the positive side, RTPP was a lavish production with superb sets and music. The studio had saved Martin Peyton's mansion set, which was a nice touch. As for recasts, I personally feel they were all justified and improved the series, particularly Susan Brown as Constance (though I could be prejudiced as I adore Ms. Brown's work). The biggest problem with casting was Allison and Betty. I preferred Pamela Shoop over Kathy Glass, and Lynn Loring was ok as Betty, but the soap would have been better with stronger performers in those roles. Robin Strasser would have made a fantastic Betty, but she was too busy deferring to hubby Larry Luckinbill. I cannot even think of an appropriate actress for Allison. Mia Farrow possesses such an ethereal quality; she is quite unique and irreplaceable. The producers should have learned that lesson from the nighttime series!

Edited February 7, 2010 by saynotoursoap