This engaging follow-up to Grace Metalious’ best-seller is a study in big-time ambition and small-town narrow-mindedness.

Peyton Place residents are up in arms after Allison MacKenzie (Carol Lynley) writes a scandalous novel whose characters and events closely mirror those in her hometown. Even her stepfather’s (Robert Sterling) position as high school principal is threatened after he refuses to remove her book from the school’s library.

But the controversy doesn’t end there - in Manhattan editing her book, Mackenzie is tempted to become involved with her married publisher (Jeff Chandler), while back in the small town, a miserable matriarch (Mary Astor) tries to destroy her son’s marriage because of her own bigotry.