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THE BEST OF EVERYTHING
They don't make 'em like this anymore. The Best of Everything is a lavishly mounted 1959 soap opera that works thanks to an almost shockingly adult screenplay for the period and some terrific performances from the female cast.
The film is set at a fictional publishing company in Manhattan and is centered around three central characters: Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) has just gotten a job as a secretary at the company when her boyfriend, Eddie (Brett Halsey) leaves the country for a year and finds herself attracted to a handsome executive (Stephen Boyd) and in a battle of wills with her hard as nails boss, Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford); Gregg Adams (Suzy Parker) is a secretary who really wants to be an actress and finds herself way too deeply involved with a slick Broadway playwright (Louis Jourdan); April Morrison (Diane Baker) is a virgin fresh off the farm who gets involved with a smarmy player (Robert Evans) who wants the milk without buying the cow.
Jean Negulesco, a director who helmed classic comedies and musicals like How to Marry a Millionaire. Daddy Long Legs, Three Coins in the Fountain and its remake The Pleasure Seekers, shows an unerring sense of the genre that is cinematic soap opera and treats it like he actually respects fans of the genre. He is aided by an often shocking screenplay by Edith Sommer and Mann Rubin, based on a novel by Rona Jaffee, that provides everything fans of the genre expect....women giving up careers for the men they love, women giving up the men they love for their careers, pre-marital sex, infidelity, even unplanned pregnancy, a lot of subject matter that had rarely been addressed onscreen in 1959, but is done with an element of discretion...there is some foreshadowing of certain plot elements, but its never overt and only true fans of the genre will see certain things that happen coming before they actually do.
The story also offers a very interesting dichotomy in the female characters presented here. The Caroline Bender character goes through an incredible transformation during this story that is such a pleasure to watch...her journey from insecure girl using a job to mend a broken heart to ambitious lady executive who doesn't need a man is the heart of the movie and completely winning. On the other hand, watching the downfall of Gregg, who is a smart self-assured woman as the film begins and the neurotic mess that she turns into is not pretty, but equally as compelling.
Hope Lange, fresh off her Oscar-nominated performance in Peyton Place proves to be an actress of substance here commanding the screen as she never had before. Lange even has a drunk scene and I kept thinking as I watched that I had never seen Lange do a drunk scene before ever, a real eye-opener of a performance that should have made her a superstar. I really don't understand the brief career that Suzy Parker had after watching this because I found her performance alluring and charismatic, completely defying the unflattering journey her character takes. As expected, Crawford made the most of her brief role. Where the film suffers is with the male actors cast here...Stephen Boyd was his usual wooden self and Robert Evans shows why he gave up his acting career to become a producer. I will admit that I enjoyed veteran Brian Aherne as a senior editor who likes to chase secretaries around his desk.
The film actually received Oscar nominations for its wonderful costumes and for the lovely title song written by Alfred Newman and Sammy Fain (dreamily crooned by Johnny Mathis). The rest of Newman's score was equally smooth and a bouquet to the set direction as well. An old fashioned soap opera with a garnish of adult gloss that was hard to resist. Fans of Valley of the Dolls will have a head start here.
They don't make 'em like this anymore. The Best of Everything is a lavishly mounted 1959 soap opera that works thanks to an almost shockingly adult screenplay for the period and some terrific performances from the female cast.
The film is set at a fictional publishing company in Manhattan and is centered around three central characters: Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) has just gotten a job as a secretary at the company when her boyfriend, Eddie (Brett Halsey) leaves the country for a year and finds herself attracted to a handsome executive (Stephen Boyd) and in a battle of wills with her hard as nails boss, Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford); Gregg Adams (Suzy Parker) is a secretary who really wants to be an actress and finds herself way too deeply involved with a slick Broadway playwright (Louis Jourdan); April Morrison (Diane Baker) is a virgin fresh off the farm who gets involved with a smarmy player (Robert Evans) who wants the milk without buying the cow.
Jean Negulesco, a director who helmed classic comedies and musicals like How to Marry a Millionaire. Daddy Long Legs, Three Coins in the Fountain and its remake The Pleasure Seekers, shows an unerring sense of the genre that is cinematic soap opera and treats it like he actually respects fans of the genre. He is aided by an often shocking screenplay by Edith Sommer and Mann Rubin, based on a novel by Rona Jaffee, that provides everything fans of the genre expect....women giving up careers for the men they love, women giving up the men they love for their careers, pre-marital sex, infidelity, even unplanned pregnancy, a lot of subject matter that had rarely been addressed onscreen in 1959, but is done with an element of discretion...there is some foreshadowing of certain plot elements, but its never overt and only true fans of the genre will see certain things that happen coming before they actually do.
The story also offers a very interesting dichotomy in the female characters presented here. The Caroline Bender character goes through an incredible transformation during this story that is such a pleasure to watch...her journey from insecure girl using a job to mend a broken heart to ambitious lady executive who doesn't need a man is the heart of the movie and completely winning. On the other hand, watching the downfall of Gregg, who is a smart self-assured woman as the film begins and the neurotic mess that she turns into is not pretty, but equally as compelling.
Hope Lange, fresh off her Oscar-nominated performance in Peyton Place proves to be an actress of substance here commanding the screen as she never had before. Lange even has a drunk scene and I kept thinking as I watched that I had never seen Lange do a drunk scene before ever, a real eye-opener of a performance that should have made her a superstar. I really don't understand the brief career that Suzy Parker had after watching this because I found her performance alluring and charismatic, completely defying the unflattering journey her character takes. As expected, Crawford made the most of her brief role. Where the film suffers is with the male actors cast here...Stephen Boyd was his usual wooden self and Robert Evans shows why he gave up his acting career to become a producer. I will admit that I enjoyed veteran Brian Aherne as a senior editor who likes to chase secretaries around his desk.
The film actually received Oscar nominations for its wonderful costumes and for the lovely title song written by Alfred Newman and Sammy Fain (dreamily crooned by Johnny Mathis). The rest of Newman's score was equally smooth and a bouquet to the set direction as well. An old fashioned soap opera with a garnish of adult gloss that was hard to resist. Fans of Valley of the Dolls will have a head start here.