Another one of the big epic melodramas involving a very troubled wealthy family, and the scandals that erupt from their sins. There is an eccentric matriarch, an ailing patriarch, the long suffering but feisty heroine, the scheming black sheep son, and the in-law whose problems create havoc for everyone, except for the schemer who uses that to further their own ends. Also the other woman, the loyal family doctor and a dangerous stranger who could bring everything to the breaking point.
While these type of films had been around for a long time, improvements in motion picture technology made them bigger than ever, especially thanks to Cinemascope, more lavish sets, and the studio's desire to get audiences to go to the theater to see films rather than sit at home and watch television. Housewives would watch soap operas during the day and on occasion go to a movie like this, then go home and watch a prime time cereal like "Peyton Place".
Certainly Mona Washbourne's seemingly martini soaked matriarch is no Nancy Hughes or Bert Bauer, but still a wise old bird who has seen it all and rolls her eyes at the suggestion that she's naive to the greed and subterfuge. Husband Herbert Marshall is barely conscious after a stroke, and greedy son Roddy McDowell is scheming to make sure that he gets the power that he fears will go to George Peppard, the husband of Elizabeth Ashley, seemingly neglected.
The film starts with Peppard, amnesiac after a car accident, trying to put the pieces together that left a woman (Sally Kellerman) in a coma, and suspicions that they were having an affair. In a serious role, comic Arte Johnson is Kellerman's estranged husband (a lounge singer) who uses blackmail as threats to destroy the family, and takes Ashley to the scene of the accident to make his claim. By the time everything is resolved, this family will have drowned metaphorically, and other tragedies will erupt.
A real steamy novel by Joseph Hayes Is the source for this glamorous cinematic trash that's reminiscent of many films to have come before it. The dialogue is absolutely atrocious and the music melodramatic. Performances seem like something that was being playing to the third balcony of a broadway theater without the poetry of a Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee or Eugene O'Neill attached. After a while, you can't help but laugh at it because all of the twists and turns (especially on the road) make it seem like a parody. Jack Smight certainly has smighteth good taste with his direction of this one.
While these type of films had been around for a long time, improvements in motion picture technology made them bigger than ever, especially thanks to Cinemascope, more lavish sets, and the studio's desire to get audiences to go to the theater to see films rather than sit at home and watch television. Housewives would watch soap operas during the day and on occasion go to a movie like this, then go home and watch a prime time cereal like "Peyton Place".
Certainly Mona Washbourne's seemingly martini soaked matriarch is no Nancy Hughes or Bert Bauer, but still a wise old bird who has seen it all and rolls her eyes at the suggestion that she's naive to the greed and subterfuge. Husband Herbert Marshall is barely conscious after a stroke, and greedy son Roddy McDowell is scheming to make sure that he gets the power that he fears will go to George Peppard, the husband of Elizabeth Ashley, seemingly neglected.
The film starts with Peppard, amnesiac after a car accident, trying to put the pieces together that left a woman (Sally Kellerman) in a coma, and suspicions that they were having an affair. In a serious role, comic Arte Johnson is Kellerman's estranged husband (a lounge singer) who uses blackmail as threats to destroy the family, and takes Ashley to the scene of the accident to make his claim. By the time everything is resolved, this family will have drowned metaphorically, and other tragedies will erupt.
A real steamy novel by Joseph Hayes Is the source for this glamorous cinematic trash that's reminiscent of many films to have come before it. The dialogue is absolutely atrocious and the music melodramatic. Performances seem like something that was being playing to the third balcony of a broadway theater without the poetry of a Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee or Eugene O'Neill attached. After a while, you can't help but laugh at it because all of the twists and turns (especially on the road) make it seem like a parody. Jack Smight certainly has smighteth good taste with his direction of this one.