The Best of Everything (1959)

One of the BEST from the 50's

I haven't seen this film in sometime, which is why I decided to just get myself a copy. With Joan Crawford, Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd, Brian Aherne, Suzy Parker, Diane Baker, Martha Hyer and Louis Jourdan (just to name a few) in the cast....you can't go wrong. Somewhat dated since there is NO computer at all in the film (smile). Each character is so good and strong. Without going into alot of detail and spoiling it for others....I like how it ended very much. Great writing, script...everything is so well done. I plan on watching this tape quite a bit. It's also nice seeing Stephen Boyd in a 'romantic' role, as I'll always remember him as 'Messala' w/the late Charlton Heston in "Ben Hur". July 25, 2008

Good movie

I watched the DVD right after reading the book, and I was aware of all of the little inconsistencies between the book and the movie (hair colors wrong, some male characters parts cut way down or not in the movie at all, etc.) The ending was also very different than the book. I liked the movie, but I probably would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't comparing it to the book all of the way through. April 28, 2008

A true GIGGLE in the genre of GAGGLE OF STARLETS Cinema

Sometimes it seems that filmmakers who've made Bad Movies We Love have done so quite by chance: surely such hilarity, goes our thinking, is indeed unintentional, just a random collision of terrible taste and utter lack of knowledge about what makes good movies good. Other times, however, we wonder if there aren't talents who set out to make them on purpose. What else could possibly explain the whole delirious genre, A GAGGLE OF STARLETS Cinema? You know -- A Passel of Starlets Go To Europe (THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN), A Brace of Starlets Go to Hollywood (VALLEY OF THE DOLLS), A Clutch of Starlets Go to Flight School (COME FLY WITH ME), A Bushell of Starlets Go to Fort Lauderdale (WHERE THE BOYS ARE), and so on.

Rona Jaffe, high priestess of this bestselling swill, sent notes to director Jean Negulesco reminding him to keep everything "real, real, real!" But no, as a trio of secretaries trying to make it in the starlet-eat-starlet world of Manhattan publishing, Hope Lange, Diane Baker and Suzy Parker spend most of their time sitting around their apartment drinking champagne. Lange threatens that if she's not wed "by the time I'm 26, I may have to take myself a lover." Baker sympathizes: "If you're that old, you have a right to live." Parker pours more bubbly and proposes a toast: "Here's to men. Bless their clean-cut faces and their dirty little minds."

When this movie remembers to send its gals back to the workplace, we're introduced to their hard-as-nails boss Joan Crawford, who, being tragically beyond 26, chainsmokes, makes sour milk expressions with her lips and -- for the sheer sport of it -- fires secretaries. To Lange's innocent query about whether to type a report, this career-harpie snarls, "No--beat it out on a native drum!" Everything about Crawford (in fact, everything about the entire movie) warns the fairer-sex viewer who wants a career, any career, "This could happen to you!" Down the hall, patriarch editor Brian Aherne is around to recall, improbably, that "Eugene O"Neill was one of my proteges," and to foist himself on exec Martha Hyer (whose excuse for having a job is that she's an unwed mother. "Who do you think you're fooling?" Aherne drools. "You've been around!"

When Crawford, who's called "the witch" by the entire cast, gets an unsolicited manuscript and scrawls her comments across the title page, "Trash... No!" you can't help thinking that she must have scrawled "Trash... Yes!" on this movie's screenplay. Crawford is, of course, like every unmarried working woman, secretly carrying on with a married man. The movie goes into high gear when she closes her office door to take a phone call from him: "I waited and waited," she overacts into the receiver. "You were home? But last night was ours. One night a week is all we have. She did the same thing last week. How many headaches can she have? I will not be taken for granted. You and your rabbit-faced wife can both go to hell!" No wonder that, before long, editor Stephen Boyd advises Lange to "get out quick -- and love happily ever after." But she drunkenly throws herself at him instead: "Please make love to me, even if you don't love me," she begs, "26 is too far ahead!" She passes out cold before he can take her up on this offer, but in the morning finds she's been given both a promotion and a raise -- the rewards that go to good girls who wait.

Parker and Baker don't fare as well. Parker switches careers to become "the toast of Broadway" and meets brilliant playwright Louis Jourdan. While you've probably guessed that Jourdan will begin his seduction of Parker by murmuring, "Act One, Scene One," and will later kiss her off by murmuring, "End of Act Three, end of play," who'd ever guess that a blank dullard like Jourdan would drive Parker literally mad? She takes up living on his fire escape and one day, when her high heel catches in the grating, she plunges to her death.

This, in the movie's view, is far preferable to the fate worse than death that awaits Baker. At the company picnic, she meets playboy Bob Evans and no sooner falls for his come-on ("'No, no, no' -- is that all they taught you in school? They give a course in 'yes,' you know") than she finds she's pregnant. On the day they're to elope, Evans brings a bouquet, but once in his convertible, he tells Baker he's really driving her to have an abortion. "I'm not going! Let me out!" she screams, and then she climbs out while the car's speeding. (Well, that's one way to get rid of a love child.) Baker lives, if only to spell out the movie's message: "I'm so ashamed," she says from her hospital bed. "Now I'm just somebody who's had an affair." (Because she's learned the error of her ways, Baker's allowed to meet a nice young doctor.)

Back at the office, Lange lands Crawford's job when -- in the most deranged plot twist of the whole flick -- Crawford resigns because she's found true love: "Oh, he talks with a twang and his suits don't fit, but he treats me as if he believes I'm the gentlest, softest woman in the world. And maybe, with enough time and tenderness, maybe I can get to believe it myself." Fat chance. Sure enough, Crawford's back in a flash, sorrowfully explaining, "It was too late for me." Lange, at last, realizes... yes!... "This could happen to me," and rushes out into the street to track down Boyd.

Fini. Applause.
March 24, 2008

Classic 50's Drama; A Few Extras

"The Best of Everything" is a classic 1959 romantic melodrama featuring the best talent: Joan Crawford, Hope Lange, Diane Baker, Suzy Parker, directed by Jean Negulesco, an Oscar-nominated title song sung by Johnny Mathis, and a beautiful score by Alfred Newman. Based on a novel by Rona Jaffe, it is the story of 5 young girls working their way up the steno pool at a publishing firm in New York City. The movie mainly focuses on these 3: Gregg (Parker) who really wants to be an actress, April (Baker) who wants to find Mr. Right, and Caroline (Lange) the main heroine, who initially is just working until her fiance comes back to marry her. Once the fiance unceremoniously dumps her, Caroline becomes a little bitter and decides to climb her way up to the top and replace her boss, the bitchy Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford). Most of the men in this movie are heels; Louis Jordan plays a theatrical director who Gregg falls in love with, and Robert Evans is a rich playboy who only wants to fool around with April, not marry her. Brian Aherne is the lecherous yet somehow likeable boss of the firm who can't keep his hands off the ladies. Stephen Boyd plays a handsome office drunk who somewhat secretly carries the torch for Caroline.

Although the story is a little over the top and of course somewhat predictable, and many will find offense with its less-than positive view on the female role in society, but one must remember that this is a snapshot of the period in which this movie was made. And what a snapshot! The acting is top notch; Crawford gives the character of Amanda Farrow much depth; although we see her bitchy office personna, we also hear her behind-closed-doors phone call to the married man that she loves deeply but is unable to spend time with because she will always be second-rate to him. Crawford is able to generate a level of sympathy for a character that easily could have been 100% rotten. Hope Lange is just glowing in this movie; she is the core of the trio; the one girl who we know in the end will make the best decisions and stick to her moral code. Diane Baker convincingly plays a naive girl who just wants to fall in love, and it is easy to believe her wide-eyed innocence. Suzy Parker is just gorgeous with her mane of red hair cascading all over the place.

The widescreen picture and sound are excellent; the colors jump off the screen. This disc features a commentary track that alternates between author Rona Jaffe and film historian Sylvia Stoddard. Each one gives excellent details on the production. Jaffe is able to contrast the book and the movie, and Stoddard gives excellent tidbits about Crawford, deleted scenes, production design, and much more. There is also the theatrical trailer, newsreel footage "Fox Movietone News: The Best of Everything Premiere," as well as trailers for a number of other 20th Century Fox Classics ("All About Eve," "An Affair to Remember," "The Grapes of Wrath," "How Green was my Valley," "How to Steal a Million," "Laura").

Highly recommended as a vintage classic! March 6, 2008

Another VC Andrews

I did enjoy the film which I opted to watch instead of reading the book. I was disappointed to see the similarities between this movie and her other book "the roomating season". Accidental death of character, married men and adultery, broken big city dreams. There was no real originality maybe I should have read this one before the other but the premise was the same. Lose of youth and innocence to the cruelties of city life. Much like everyone's favorite author VC Andrews Jaffe simply reminded us of how good her other works where. September 18, 2007

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