I just don't get how a film that talked about sex and featured rape and such revealing clothes could have made it past the censors back then.
Or was the Production Code waning or already gone by 1957?
Hey j-j-jaded
You got your mama's style but you're yesterday's child to me
So jaded
The Production Code was still very much in effect (they had required changes to THE BAD SEED a year or so earlier which ridiculously altered the ending) - one of the concessions to the Code was the termination of Selena Cross's pregnancy - the word 'abortion' is never used, because the Code required that it be portrayed as a miscarriage resulting from a fall while she was being chased. So the doctor removes her appendix and swears the attending nurse to secrecy!
"Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke."
"The word 'abortion' is never used".
For that matter, I don't think the word 'rape' is ever heard in the movie, either.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
What revealing clothes?
shareBetty Hall's; maybe Selena in her slip. I don't know that the revealing clothing was so much of an issue as the sex, rape, incest, etc.
I watched it for the first time yesterday--good movie. The book is even better if you remember the year it was written--not so "shocking" today, but in the '50s it was scandalous.
Yes..the rape/incest story-line probably was it. (however, technically it wasn't incest because the rapist was Selena's step-father) The scene with Rodney Harrington and Betty Anderson after their nude swim was probably daring as it was implied that Betty was naked under the towel. As for Selena in a slip, that has been shown in movies earlier than when Peyton Place was made.
shareSomehow I forgot about the "skinny dipping." Thanks!
shareYes..the rape/incest story-line probably was it. (however, technically it wasn't incest because the rapist was Selena's step-father) The scene with Rodney Harrington and Betty Anderson after their nude swim was probably daring as it was implied that Betty was naked under the towel. As for Selena in a slip, that has been shown in movies earlier than when Peyton Place was made.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I do believe that Metalious had the story as the biological father abusing the daughter cluminating in a rape. The publisher's changed it to step-father with out Metalious's knowledge. I don't think she was too happy about it.
Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...share
Actually no moosefeathers, I'm just rereading the book. It's clearly stated that Selena's biological father was killed in a lumbering accident before she was born. Lucas Cross, who was a widower with a young son (Paul), married Selena's mother when she was 6 weeks old. In the movie it makes out that Lucas is not the biological father of any of the children, including Joey! The book is clearer on the subject.
shareYes. i was wrong on one fact. The publisher's wouldn't sign with her if she didnt' change the story to reflect the STEP father raping her. She originally had it as the biological father.
Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...share
[deleted]
The rape of Selena Cross is actually based on a real life incident, I read. A teen girl killed her father who had molested her repeatedly and she hid his body in a pig pen or chicken coop. She was acquitted of charges.
shareAccording to a footnoted introduction prepared by Ardis Cameron for a new edition of Peyton Place published in 1999, the model for Selena Cross was Jane Glenn, a 20 year old resident of Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire. The circumstances of the 1947 murder roughly match those portrayed in the novel (the repeated instances of incest over a number of years, the sheep pen gravesite, assistance from a younger sibling, etc.) There, however, the similarities actually end. Miss Glenn pleaded Guilty to a charge of manslaughter in the first degree and was sent to prison. Her brother was given probation but remanded to the state reform school.
shareAlso, in the original manuscript, Selena and Lucas were daughter and father, but Metalious's publisher had her change it to stepdaughter and stepfather because it was thought at the time to write about incest was too "taboo". Metalious later lamented, "They turned my tragedy into a dirty book".
I recall reading the book as well. I think it was the stepdad. But Selena was 14 in the book, versus 17 in the film.
shareIt's funny how salacious this film was considered when I think about the fact that Turner's role in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" proved quite scandalous eleven years prior. It's the sex... the prudes always get so up in arms over the tiniest things.
shareYeah, and the prudes are still getting up in arms over the tiniest things. In those days it was just Reds and sex. Now it's a myriad of politically correct strictures that affect what we say and how we say it, as well as what we eat, what we drink, what we smoke, you name it. Don't kid yourself that we're any more enlightened or liberal now than those BAD people of the mid-20th century that are so cleverly caricatured in literature and cinema and so condescendingly belittled in casual conversation and movie forums. The shackles on our free speech and behavior are far more numerous and severe today than they were in the 40s and 50s.
shareA lot of very major changes were made from the book. Selena is raped only once in the movie, an abortion is turned into a miscarriage, Constance's hot date with Rossi is changed from a moonlight swim to a shore outing, Norman's mother's incestuousness is really toned down, But the movie was made at a time when foreign films (more sexually frank than ours) were being released here and doing quite well. The Production Code office was realizing they couldn't be as hard-ass as they used to be (and after all, a lot of people had read the book, so it needed at least to be recognizable), so they cut the movie more slack than they would have done in previous years.
shareJust wait until you see Anatomy of a Murder!
share