The Best of Everything (1959)

Simply Perfect

Sadly Over-hyped

Pretty Good

Absolutely Fantastic

Copyright 1959 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Paramount: 8 October 1959 (simultaneously at the Normandie from 9 October 1959). U.S. release: October 1959. U.K. release: November 1959. Australian release: 3 March 1960. 121 minutes.SYNOPSIS: The affairs and aspirations of some of the female staff in a New York publishing house.NOTES: Location scenes filmed in New York City. The title song was nominated for an Academy Award, losing out to "High Hopes" from "A Hole in the Head" (which was no loss for Sammy Cahn as he wrote the lyrics for that one too. The music was by James Van Heusen).VIEWER'S GUIDE: Definitely unsuitable for children.COMMENT: The direction is dull, Brian Aherne is wet, but the rest of the cast is interesting - especially Joan Crawford (even though some of her best scenes allegedly ended up on the cutting-room floor because Wald thought that the finished film was too long). Of course, the story is pure soap opera, but it cleaned up at the domestic box-office, coming in third for Fox behind "Can Can" and "From the Terrace" in 1959-60. Despite this success (which was certainly not repeated overseas, where the movie was lucky to retrieve its print and advertising costs), CinemaScope was losing its special allure. As in "How To Marry a Millionaire", the story concerns three girls on the make. But this time they don't want millionaire husbands so much as Success — with sex on the side. Gone is not only the charm and simplicity of the characters, the clear-cut, attractively defined direction of the story, but the style, the flair, the imaginativeness of the storytelling. And so far as CinemaScope is concerned, the film might just as well have been made in standard widescreen.

Screenwriters Edith Sommer and Mann Rubin zip through Rona Jaffe's book about love-starved stenographers at a New York City publishing firm at top speed; brought on-board by an employment agency, it only takes a few scenes before Radcliffe girl Hope Lange moves from the typewriters to the manuscripts...and then it's on to editor! Although the film runs a full two hours, it's never boring due to the rapidly-changing scenario (the narrative plays like an adaptation in shorthand). This coupled with Jean Negulesco's penchant for occasionally heartfelt melodrama and "The Best of Everything" quickly becomes the best of all soap opera clichés. There's the fanny-pinching executive, the hard-drinking heartthrob, the female warhorse who let the one man who ever loved her slip through her hands, the cad who specializes in knocking up naïve virgins, et al. The picture looks good and has a few goosey scenes and strong moments, though Lange's rocket-like ride to the top is laughable, as is Suzy Parker's role as an actress (named Gregg!) who becomes obsessed with Broadway director Louis Jourdan (yet another cad). Most of the women are weak-kneed, weak-willed pushovers for a pretty face, while the majority of the men are smooth-talking liars and cheats. Quite a stew for those in the mood. **1/2 from ****

You can't take this movie seriously.....the plot is predictable and trite, the acting often over the top, the dialog laughable; but it all adds up to great fun! Three "career girls" in the late 1950's find their way to the BIG city and all the evils and temptations their mothers probably warned them about: married men, alcohol, premarital sex, abortion, etc.Then there's Amanda Farrell (Joan Crawford) who did succeed professionally, but whose personal life has been sacrificed for an office with her name on the door.This movie may have been believable 50 years ago, but now it's just great campy fun! Rent/buy it and enjoy.

I'm sure Rona Jaffe's book examined the lives of working girls a little more seriously and with better intent than THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, which is about as cliché-ridden with ripe dialog as any film in memory, perhaps eclipsed only by VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.On the plus side, there are ravishing shots of bustling New York City in the heart of mid-town Manhattan and the credits open with Johnny Mathis singing "Love Is The Best Of Everything." That's as good as it gets.The story of four office girls considering whether to choose career over marriage (while being stalked by men with raging hormones) is the same old tripe we've seen dozens of times, usually with more finesse. All of the men--STEPHEN BOYD, BRIAN AHERNE, LOUIS JOURDAN and ROBERT EVANS--are depicted as scoundrels just a few steps better than Jack the Ripper or the infamous Don Juan--treating the girls in the typing pool as though they are part of a harem.The girls are the usual blend of disparate types--with SUZY PARKER, HOPE LANGE, and DIANE BAKER being the most conspicuous in having to deal with unscrupulous beaus. And for good measure, we have JOAN CRAWFORD as the female boss from hell in what is little more than a cameo role. Crawford makes the most of it.And so it goes. It's soap-opera, plain and simple, '50s style, but nowhere as accomplished as some of the other pulp fiction of the period that made it to the big screen. Watch at your own risk.