After that, when things have shockingly not improved with her hubby, she gets truly creative with her next murderous impulse. This time, she chooses to eliminate someone you will not expect, and to craftily frame her cousin for the death, because she jealously suspects said cousin and her hubby of having an affair. Her cousin, played by Jeanne Crain, also has remarkable cheekbones, and though she is less crazy or evil, she's the one now facing a murder trial. (I have discovered that many of these older dramas feature courtroom showdowns, often wherein people have to admit secret love tearfully on the stand. You can look for such a moment in this film. And, while you're at it, check out Vincent Price playing a lawyer.)

I know I have already given away some big plot points, but I am going to try to avoid spoiling the end. Let's just say, I think we're supposed to think this movie has a happy ending, for a few of the characters at least. But I actually wind up thinking that maybe twisted Ellen was right about a thing or two. Not about all the murdering, of course, but if you watch it, you might see what I mean. And whether or not you come to the same conclusion, you'll be treated to a surprisingly creepy Technicolor treat.

The truth is, when I initially encountered the title Peyton Place on a list of movies that I had to do some work on, I couldn't have been less interested. It sounded to me like some saccharin fifties era bundle of lies about American life, and I made no plans to watch it. (Especially not when we have like, what, half a dozen Alien Nation movies I need to catch up on? I mean, come on, I have priorities.) But my preconception was all wrong. There's a lot more than meets the eye to Peyton Place, and that, in itself, is exactly what this movie is all about. Allison MacKenzie, the protagonist played by Diane Varsi, puts a point on it, saying that "Everybody in this town hides behind plain wrappers." Because, behind the cute outfits and Labor Day parades and tidy clapboard houses, some real shit goes down in Peyton Place.

Let me give you a little more info. The story centers around the graduating high school class of 1941 in a quaint New England town. The young adults struggle (particularly with their parents) to grow up and find their way, while the adults of the town have some problems and secrets of their own. There is a pervasive social pressure to keep up appearances, but in reality, things are not what they seem. I'm not gonna tell you who does what, but let's just say that within this seemingly ideal little town, people gossip, lie, drink, fight, get laid, and slap their children. There's a suicide, a rape and a murder. Hope Lange's character in particular goes through some dark, dark stuff. And in addition to all that, you can count on World War II to come along and complicate things. The story is carefully constructed and compelling, each character has something to do, each scene serves a purpose. It is long, but hey, it's in Cinemascope and Lana Turner looks hot in lots of different outfits. The movie really captures a sense of time and place different from our own, which is something I love in a film. But, at the same time, the central idea of the film still seems fresh 50 years later.

Now, make no mistake: all my praises aside, there is some big time melodrama in Peyton Place. Particularly when it comes to the romance between Mrs. MacKenzie - Lana Turner's emotionally stiffened character - and Mr. Rossi, the impressive stranger played by Lee Philips who comes into town and tries to unlock her heart. There's one emotional confrontation between them that's almost laugh out loud funny. Never in reality does someone just blow into your life and start yelling at you about how you handle your emotions. But that is why we have melodrama (and bad action movies), so we can have characters distill one another's inner lives into over simplified dialogue. And man do I love it.

Peyton Place was nominated for 9 Oscars in 1958, acclaim I think it wholly deserves. But it was totally shut out! I wonder how the studio and the creators felt about that. (Interestingly, that's the same year Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison  was in the running! I am turning into a 50s movie junkie.) Luckily for us, even if it wasn't recognized by the Academy, we can still appreciate and enjoy it today. So file this one on the growing list of movies from the fifties that surprise and impress me. Because Peyton Place holds up to the test of time, and totally exceeds expectations.

I didn't watch the Peter Yates' film Mother, Jugs & Speed for months because I was superlatively turned off by the title. Specifically the word Jugs in the title, unsurprisingly. But I wound up watching it on the recommendation of my boss, which was way fortunate because it's so good. (Plus now I get the title. Which I could explain to you, but I won't, and instead just leave the mystery hanging out there as another impetus for you to watch the movie.)

Mother, Jugs & Speed is about a lawless Los Angeles ambulance crew and the many situations - ranging from misadventures to disasters - that the drivers encounter and alternately create. It stars one of film's all time hotties, Raquel Welch, one of America's great funnymen, Bill Cosby, and one of modern cinema's renowned actors, Harvey Keitel. And Larry Hagman's in it too. It's laugh out loud funny, heartbreaking at moments, and really well written. And Bill Cosby's character wears fingerless gloves, drinks beer in his ambulance and receives a massage involving multiple vibrators. What other movie offers even a fraction of all that?

Something awesome happened in American cinema in the 70s. Filmmakers started making movies about real people, real behavior, real life crazy shit. Like sex, drugs, death, drugs, indifference and more drugs. And they dared to be irreverent in their treatment of these things. Like M*A*S*H, the classic of the genre (if you want to call it a genre), this movie is brilliantly irreverent, delicately dancing between black and poignant and hilarious. Unlike M*A*S*H, Mother, Jugs & Speed has a well-constructed story, with characters that develop and storylines that pay off. Even the jokes have legs. But this smartly dovetailing plot is really just a backdrop to the performances, the comedy, the irreverence and the heart. M, J and S even manages to answer the question of what a human life is worth, and it does so within a minute or so of the movie's start.

Each one is worth $42.50. Plus mileage.

Ed Avery, played by James Mason, gets some weird disease that causes him a lot of pain, and that will kill him if he doesn't take a magic pill that is fortunately available to him. But he starts taking it too much, and consequently he starts BUGGING OUT. His wife, son and close family friend played by Walter Matthau grapple helplessly with his escalating mental illness. Though Ed denies any ill effects from the magic pill, his doctor warns that "Sometimes we see it produce some pretty queer mental effects." Queer, like, say, very enthusiastically buying your wife dresses you can't afford? Abusing your son with vigorous football practice followed by vigorous math problem sets? Berating the milkman about how much the milk bottles jingle and jangle? Ed's madness is at times comic; his family's paralysis at dealing with it is horrific.

I suspect that a contemporary review of Bigger Than Life wouldn't look at the flaws of the domestic situation of post-war America as one of the core motifs of the movie, but it's inescapable in a modern viewing. It's the heart of the problem depicted. The sort of Feminine Mystique, institutionalized craziness of being a housewife that dictated that you defer to your man in all ways is really pushed to its warped limits when your guy becomes a LOONY who refuses to let your son eat and accuses you of getting it on with Walter Matthau and yet YOU STILL DO WHAT HE SAYS. The movie spotlights how these suffocating artificial constructs about the way relationships and finances and appearances were supposed to be effectively made it impossible for this family to cope with something as demanding as insanity. Either Barbara Rush's character's behavior is really representative of how a wife would've tried to deal with a nutjob husband back in the day, or she's just a major sap. I wonder.

Like Ray's more well known Rebel Without a Cause, in scene after scene of Bigger Than Life you can see the careful thought that went into staging the actors and placing the camera. Lights and shadows and camera angles are all very deliberately used. No detail or symbol is overlooked, from the broken bathroom mirror to the delightful choice that circus music blare from the TV at the height of Ed's psychosis, to an ominous red light at the hospital. We may as well just call it the crazy light. So if you're in the mood for some crazy (either of the pill popping or domestic oppression variety), or of you want to know whether the crazy light is on or off by the end of this tale, take a break from your own day to catch Bigger Than Life.

The Chinese have isolated a magic enzyme that allows them to grow wheat in the jungle and pineapple in the snow. This empowers Mao-dictated red China with the ability to strong arm the rest of the hungry world, but luckily we in the Western world have our own super weapon: Gregory Peck (of course). This time he happens to be a genius chemist, so America (with a little participation from Britain and the Soviet Union) sends him in to try to lift the magically delicious formula with some crafty, enzyme mapping, ping pong diplomacy.

Even armed as he is with his patented manliness, knowledge of Chinese, and a mastery of chemistry that turns out to have more than one application in these spy games, can Gregory Peck get the job done and overcome the Red Terror all around him? And what about the danger that may be in his own head, courtesy of the U. S. of A.? Can America be trusted anymore than China with the magic enzyme? This movie asks that question, and thereby presents an uncertain picture of America and of the security of our world. But one thing still remains true: we can always count on Gregory Peck.

I initially watched the Nunnally Johnson film Night People simply because the title is so good. It's set in occupied Berlin in the 50s, and the military political situation is super tense. Gregory Peck plays Colonel Van Dyke, a soldier diplomat who talks fast and sure and intimidates and impresses people with his fast sure talking. He sometimes has to sleep in because all this tricky international business keeps him up late at night (thus the film's title). Like when a young American soldier gets abducted by the Ruskies, who may in fact be some holdover bad Germans. To complicate things, the abducted kid's Dad blows into Berlin - from Toledo, no less - and demands "Action." Dad, quite nicely played by Broderick Crawford, is used to being the fastest surest talker in town - but he's out of his league in divided Berlin. And certainly no match for Gregory Peck.

The situation is a hot mess, but GP, being the able fast-talking protector of our way of life that he is, navigates the whole murderous, double-crossing, poison-laced jumble and probably still makes it to his 1 AM poker game. And I think he's doing his secretary. It's implied, although ambiguous, since he's always bossing her around - or was that supposed to be normal? He also repeatedly calls a nurse "Nursey." And at one point, while talking about this hottie German Frau who negotiates some of this international intrigue as his agent (and who he also has a history of doing), he proclaims that "If that dame's banging away at the absinthe tonight I'll shoot her straight through the head so help me." In other words, he was the man. And America was lucky to have him.

The lesson of this movie is that if Gregory Peck takes you in his arms and says, "It's alright baby," and he says it fast and sure, it is. You can believe him. That is, of course, unless you're a two-timing, double agent, identity thieving, absinthe-banging Nazi spy. In that case he'll knock you out cold and ship your Kraut carcass off to the Russians. Because Gregory Peck kicks ass for America, so the rest of us can sleep soundly.