In 1941, in the small town of Peyton Place, Michael Rossi (Lee Phillips) is hired as the new principal of the local high school. While the students are preparing to graduate, some of them live personal dramas. Allison MacKenzie (Diane Varsi) aspires to be a successful writer, but she is very repressed by her widow dominant mother Connie MacKenzie (Lana Turner), a woman dedicated to raise her daughter in a conservative way and work hard in her shop only. When her mother believes in a gossip about Allison and her friend Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn), Allison argues with Connie and she discloses her hidden past, and Allison moves to New York. Allison's best friend Selena Cross (Hope Lange) lives with her mother, the housemaid Nellie Cross (Betty Field), her small brother Joseph and her abusive drunken stepfather, the janitor Lucas Cross (Arthur Kennedy), in a very poor cabin. The wealthy Rodney Harrington (Barry Coe) loves his independent and ahead of time girlfriend Betty Anderson (Terry Moore), in spite of his father Mr. Harrington (Leon Ames) be against their relationship. Selena is raped by Lucas and later she aborts the child while escaping from Lucas. The local Dr. Matthew Swain (Lloyd Nolan) takes care of her, forges his records and gets a written confession of Lucas, forcing him to leave Peyton Place. With the attack of Pearl Harbor, the youngsters join the armed forces to fight in the World War II. Lucas returns, tries to abuse Selena, but she reacts and kills him. When Selena is sent to trial, she makes Dr. Swain to promise that he would never disclose the truth, since she was afraid of the scandal and of hurting her beloved boy-friend. However, Dr. Swain exposes the sordid, hypocrite and despicable moral behavior of the local gossipy and intolerant dwellers and tells the drama of Selena to the jury.<br /><br />"Peyton Place" is a dated melodrama, a soap opera that shows the stereotypical lifestyle of a small town in America in the 40's. The false morality and intolerance rules the relationships among the dwellers, with gossips, sexual repression and snobbery in a hypothetic "Peyton Place". This film has many good moments, the best one when the doctor exposes the wounds and the truth about the dwellers, but also shows lots of clichés. My vote is seven.<br /><br />Title (Brazil): "A Caldeira do Diabo" ("The Devil's Boiler").