John Michael Hayes deserved some sort of special award for his skillful adaptation of Grace Metalious’ best seller – her perfectly converted a trashy book into a piece of trashy, but enjoyable and censorship friendly 1957 Hollywood cinema. Bloody hard to do.
The small town atmosphere is a bit more warm and it’s been toned down a lot but there’s still plenty of skeletons and tough stuff – Serena is raped and does kill someone, Alison is illegitimate, Serena is persecuted when she shouldn't be, the gossips are vicious. They cut the bit where Michael Rossi rapes Constance and she enjoys it and lots of other suff. There’s also more happy endings – Russ Tamblyn’s character is allowed to genuinely heal (hey he smokes he must be grown up), Betty (Terry Moore) genuinely reunites with dead Rodney’s father as opposed to being determined to milk him (although you could still read that into it); Serena's boyfriend stands by her; the town rallies around Serena at the end (a lovely moment).
In one respect it's harsher than the book - the doctor (Lloyd Nolan) here refuses to perform an abortion (in the book he does it); not only that, he forces Serena to tell who the father is by shaking her. What a bastard! Then later on he blabs about her on the stand. Also Michael Rossi (Lee Phillips) takes the job as principal away from a spinster lady who would probably have done a good job mainly because he's a man who demands a raise and gives a nifty speech.
Lana Turner is dreadful in that Lana Turner way - all gnashing foreheads and torment, only without any glamorous outfits to help her. Diane Varsi is bland too as her daughter. Lee Philips is strong as Rossi - his acting career never kicked on though, as he turned more to directing. Hope Lange is very good as Serena, the one wholly admirable character in the film (apart from burying bodies when she should have come clean). Barry Coe is this random thing of muscle, Terry Moore is a bit too old, Lloyd Nolan and Leon Ames very good.
Best performance though goes to Rss Tamblyn who gives off this sort of twisted, sick vibe, full of tormented pain and suffering - you know that character has been through a lot.
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