The original novel and film made so much money it would have been rude to not attempt a sequel - both novel two and film two were shoddy pieces of work.
I don't blame Grace Metalious for cranking out a book after a few drinks - Jerry Wald could have taken more love and care with the movie. He didn't have John Michael Hayes to do the script this time which presumably hurt.
The film suffers badly compared to the original, which had some great secrets (Lana Turner's pregnancy), romance (Turner and the teacher), archetypal characters (Terry Moore's trashy girl, the rich man's son Barry Coe). and memorable scandal moments (the rape of Hope Lange and her killing of her step father).
This has a few decent ideas - the book based on the events in the first film set a cat among the pigeons; Alison (played here by Carol Lynley) has an affair with her editor, a married man (Jeff Chandler); Mary Astor is a snob mother who hates the new wife (Luciana Paluzzi) of her son (Brett Halsey). But it wasn't enough - it needed a murder or natural disaster or something. Why not do something big between Lynley and Chandler's wife, like the wife tries to kill Lynley? Why doesn't Astor try to kill Paluzzi or vice versa? Why do they pull their punches?
The film misses a trick by not featuring Lloyd Nolan's doctor character, Terry Moore's tramp, the old rich man, or Russ Tamblyn's soldier.(I guess Brett Halsey's character is a version of this.)
The cast isn't up to the original. Carol Lynley's blank expression and dead eyes made me long for... well, not Diane Varsi's blank expression and dead eyes, but I did wish Tuesday Weld had played her part. Weld is in it but is wasted in the part of Selina, who doesn't really do anything except start a romance with a skiing instructor who kind of tries to rape her... and then, awfully, he comes back at the end and declares his love for Selina. Urgh! He's a rapist. I mean, a lot of women who are abused go on to marry abusive men but... that shouldn't be a positive and it's an issue not explored.
Lana Turner didn't return and you can't blame her because there's nothing for that character to do. Eleanor Parker tries but has nowhere to go - Turner clashed with her daughter, fell in love, revealed a secret... Parker just worries about her daughter going out with a married man which is entirely understandable... and that's about it.
It's too skewed towards men - Parker gets up in court (an obscenity hearing for the book) and says her husband was right, Weld comes to see her horrible rapey ski instructor is a good guy, Lynley listens to Jeff Chandler when it comes to writing a book, Astor is put in her place by her useless son Brett Halsey standing up.
Astor easily has the best part, as a smothering other bitch, but even she doesn't have many places to go. Chandler is perfectly cast in this sort of thing, and there's camp fun with him lecturing Lynley about Max Perkins, and them falling asleep in his New York office and a black manservant coming in and opening the curtains the next day. But that's about it.
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