Some people leave their hometown for a reason and should never return. That's the situation for New England bred and born Richard Burton (with a British accent), coming back reluctantly to see ailing friend Tom Drake, and being dragged into more drama than soap viewers at the time were seeing in Springfield, Oakdale or Henderson. Drake, in major pain as a result of cancer, wants Burton to end his misery and marry his wife, Barbara Rush.
The townsfolk are the exact same type that the audience saw in Peyton Place, and here, the difference is that the leading focus is a man, not exactly totally sympathetic but certainly worth some empathy. He has a resentment against a lifelong drunk, James Dunn (a forgotten leading man from the 30's who had won the Oscar for playing the father in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"), the cause of him leaving town. The nurse on Drake's case is Angie Dickinson, in love with Burton, but troubled by his sudden fling with the grieving Rush.
The townsfolk includes an amoral politician (Jack Carson), a shady newspaper publisher (Henry Jones, gleefully informing Dickinson about Burton and Rush) and Drake's father (Carl Benton Reid) who hates Burton vehemently. Like King's Row, not the perfect place to raise your children, filled with melodramatic resentments and sick, nasty people. But fascinating in an eve's dropping way, with Burton chewing up the scenery, seemingly desperate to get through it. Corny direction by Daniel Petrie often had me laughing where I shouldn't have been.
The townsfolk are the exact same type that the audience saw in Peyton Place, and here, the difference is that the leading focus is a man, not exactly totally sympathetic but certainly worth some empathy. He has a resentment against a lifelong drunk, James Dunn (a forgotten leading man from the 30's who had won the Oscar for playing the father in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"), the cause of him leaving town. The nurse on Drake's case is Angie Dickinson, in love with Burton, but troubled by his sudden fling with the grieving Rush.
The townsfolk includes an amoral politician (Jack Carson), a shady newspaper publisher (Henry Jones, gleefully informing Dickinson about Burton and Rush) and Drake's father (Carl Benton Reid) who hates Burton vehemently. Like King's Row, not the perfect place to raise your children, filled with melodramatic resentments and sick, nasty people. But fascinating in an eve's dropping way, with Burton chewing up the scenery, seemingly desperate to get through it. Corny direction by Daniel Petrie often had me laughing where I shouldn't have been.