Another Movie Range I.D.?

[danemodsandy]

Hello Again!

As I continue my current binge of 1950s movie melodramas, I've been taking a closer look at 1957's Peyton Place, with Lana Turner and a cast of thousands.

The shot below is from Lana's kitchen in the movie, ostensibly in Maine where the film is set, but actually on a 20th Century-Fox soundstage; La Lana never set foot in Maine for the filming, regally declining to shoot so much as a single frame there, although the rest of the cast had to go. Such is star clout.

Anyway, I can see that the fridge is a Servel, but I'm not sure about the range. Norge? Hans, do you know? Does anyone?

The actresses in the scene are Betty Field at left and Diane Varsi at right; both ladies are long gone. Sad to think that a 1957 movie with so many young actors in it has so few survivors; "bad girl" Terry Moore is one of the very few left.

 

[mavei]

Loooks like one of the Tappan models or a late-model Maytag Dutch Oven.

 

[ken]

Did they get the age of the appliances right? The movie is set in 1941 so the appliances shouldnt be newer than that year.

Maybe Im about to get a tad too detailed here? And I guess its believable they could have had a Servel refrigerator in town but wouldnt you have seen a Servel in a rural setting as they operated on gas rather than electric? I suppose there could have been a preference for gas as you then didnt have to worry about electric outages.

BTW...One of my favorite movies. I could never decide who was prettier. Diane Varsi as Allison, Terry Moore as Betty or Hope Lange as Selena. I always find Terry Moore so sexy in the scene in the dress shop where shes trying on that red dress. She certainly has curves in all the right places to say the least! Not to say Lana Turner wasnt just as hot too. Having received her only Oscar nomination for her portrayal as Constance MacKenzie. [this post was last edited: 1/3/2014-19:42]

 

[robinsondm]

A Google Image search -- not my knowledge of appliances -- leads me to believe the range is a Tappan. See this picture of a 1946 Philgas Tappan De Luxe -- looks pretty darn close! Here's a link to the accompanying blog article:

http://tappantalk.blogspot.com/2011/04/philgas-tappan-de-luxe.html

 

[danemodsandy]

I Think....

Dean has nailed it!

So far as the year of the appliances is concerned, Peyton Place is full of anachronisms - things out of place for the time period supposedly covered. That Servel is definitely a '50s unit; you can tell from the logo. "You'll Never Know" is played at the 1941 graduation, two years before the song was introduced. "Dream" is another song making an early appearance in '41; it was written in '44. Alison plays music on an LP phonograph, which wasn't introduced until '49. Stop signs were yellow in the '40s, not red.

There are plenty of other errors. "Peyton Place" was a composite of several Maine towns; editing made it all appear to be the same place. The major location was Camden, Maine, and a number of businesses can be seen to have "Camden" in their names. When Diane Varsi walks out the front door of "her" house, she's walking out of a real house in Camden, and through the front door, you can see floral wallpaper. Except that the soundstage set depicting the foyer had grey walls. There's a lot more wrong, too, like the fashions; there is not a single dress on an actress that is anything but 1957-chic. They were shooting Peyton Place on two coasts, in a hurry, and they just didn't get everything right. When it came to the clothes, they didn't care - it's always more important that stars look beautiful to audiences at the time of the film's release than it is for them to look accurate, even today.

A note about the presence of the Servel: Camden, Maine was not rural; it's a small town, but not a country town by any means. Then as now, it's full of very well-off people who summer there or live there year-round. Gas service for the Servel would not have been a problem even in '57. [this post was last edited: 1/3/2014-20:24]

 

[norgeway]

41!

There was a 41 NIB Tappan a while back on Craigslist EXACTLY like this!

 

[robinsondm]

While I don't have knowledge of these old stoves, I do love Google searches. Attached is a picture from a 1941 Tappan catalog, taken from the same Tappan blog. The handles and controls in the catalog picture look about right, but note the vents on the backsplash are vertical, not horizontal -- so are we sure the "Peyton Place" stove is a '41?

Again, I bow to the superior knowledge of you "old appliance" gurus, but I do love Google searching! Here's a link to the blog page:

Late 1940's Tappan

Angie sent me the following email about her stove, as well as a bunch of great photos: "My husband and I moved into an old house that was b...

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