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The Best of Everything is a high gloss large screen soap opera which follows the careers of four career women, Hope Lange, Suzy Parker, Diane Baker, and Martha Hyer at a New York publishing firm. What's the best for some women is not necessarily the best for all.

Presiding over this group of young fillies is wise old mare Joan Crawford who's been around the track a few times on screen and in real life. She looks right at home as the boss lady as well she should have at this point.

Around the time she was making The Best of Everything Joan Crawford became a widow when her fourth husband, Alfred Steele died. It was a particularly traumatic event for her, she woke up one morning and found him dead in bed next to her. She inherited all of his stock in Pepsi Cola where he was the board chairman and during the same period as The Best of Everything was being made, she wound up the queen bee at Pepsi Cola. Life does sometimes imitate art. So that authority as she barks out dictation and coffee orders to Hope Lange rings real true.

In fact all the women here with the exception of Lange are in for some rough sledding. It's rough for Lange too, but she literally makes the best of everything.

What a collection of stinkers the men are in this film. The best of them, Stephen Boyd, is a heavy drinker. The others Louis Jourdan, Robert Evans, and Brett Halsey, are as slimy a collection of rodents as ever gathered for one film.

I can't forget Brian Aherne either who's the fanny pinching head of this publishing firm. Half that office would have sexual harassment suits going today.

Some nice location shots of New York in the fifties make the film a real treat. Catch it by all means.

Claire Booth Luce's "The Women" shows relationships with men through a woman's point of view in a play, (and 1939 film that also has Joan Crawford playing a bitch: a character who might have been Amanda Farrow 20 years before), that has no male characters. Here we see the male characters and what a bunch they are. They use women like toys and throw them away, leaving the women to suffer. Ironically, the women in "The Women", perhaps because they are all we see, are shown in a less than favorable light, alternately silly and scheming, with the only "nice" one, (Norma Shearer), growing "claws" by the end. In "The Best of Everything" we see the men for the cads they are while the women are largely innocent and vulnerable.

This is a film about women leaping from things. Diane Baker leaps from a car, (in perhaps the most absurd scene in cinema history, which is not in the book). Suzy Parker falls from a fire escape. The women in the film are leaping into the workplace, looking for success and love at the same time. Women would leap into the future and leave this type of soap opera behind in the next decade. But they would come back to it in the 80's and 90's through the novels of people like Sidney Sheldon and Judith Krantz, (although their trashier works aren't as good as this).

The best thing about this film is the way it looks. I love the glossy cinemascope films of the 50's and 60's. They look so much better than the pixel-challenged home movies we've been making since, especially in the letterboxed version we see on TV, and the DVD, with the picture so clear you could walk into it. The look of the bevy of young beauties in it is also memorable. This film probably has more beautiful women in it than any other. It has a supermodel, (Suzy Parker), a beauty queen, (Myrna Hansen, who was not Miss America 1954 as Rona Jaffe says in the DVD commentary but rather Miss USA 1953, per the IMDb: but so what), and a Playboy playmate, (June Blair, from January 1957). My vote goes to Suzy, one of the astonishing beauties of all time. Her acting here isn't as awful as people pretend: they are just reacting, as people did then, to the sight of a supermodel, (the first, really), trying to act. Nobody seemed to care how well she did. Her role, that of an apparently worldly woman who turns out to be the most vulnerable, is the most complex in the bunch and she does just fine.

The most touching thing about the film now is the age of the female leads at the time. Hope Lange was 27 when they filmed this in the spring of 1959. Diane Baker was 20. Suzy Parker was 26. Hope, who looked to be Grace Kelly's heir, never made it really big and wound up being Mrs. Muir on television and, per the IMDb, wound up living in a home with "crates for coffee tables" because she spent her money on causes she believed in before dying at age 72 in 2003. This film must have seemed a very distant and irrelevant memory to her by then. Baker, always a welcome face in 60's TV, (especially to Richard Kimble), and still active as an actress and acting coach, just turned 67. Parker found "the best of everything" with Bradford Dillman for 40 years before dying at age 70 the same year Lange did. But here they are, young, beautiful and ambitious for success and love, just like their characters.

Every few years, Fox would go to a favorite story of theirs - Three girls rooming together, looking for career and romantic success and finding lots of heartache along the way. The first time Fox did this was with the 1936 film "Ladies In Love", set in Budapest. Later incarnations were "How To Marry A Millionaire", "Three Coins in the Fountain", and this film. There may be others of which I am not aware.

In this incarnation, three women trying to break into the publishing business decide to room together in a tiny apartment in Manhattan. Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) is a recent graduate of one of the female Ivys - Radcliffe - and that prime education buys her a ticket into - the stenographic pool??? She has aspirations of being editor, a job currently held by Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford), but in the words of Highlander, "there can be only one", and she has lots of competition in the steno pool not to mention Farrow likes her view from the throne.

Complications ensue. And those complications include out of wedlock pregnancy, affairs with married men, and various men lecturing women who aspire to be more than stenographers, given their Ivy League educations, about how the road to success will sap their femininity. Note that these lecturing men are NOT having to serve time in the steno pool on their much more abbreviated way to the top!

I can't blame Fox too much for this repetition. WB had a fondness for a few stories that they did retreads of during the production code era too. See the film "Slim" for reference, along with all of its remakes and forerunners.

More equality today, much more, but overall nothing has changed. All the sad, tawdry, pathetic, moving and bitter moments between women and men in the office is just as it is today, less the blatant sexual harassment. Love looking at old pics of nyc and looking in store windows....things seem surprisingly familiar and not dated.

A classic late 50's film. The superannuated headliners (Joan Crawford and Louis Jordan) are not at their best, but the direction, cinematography, and acting of the younger cast are compelling. In a 50's sense (which I love).

The look and feel of the artsy (over-artsy?) contemporary film "Far from heaven" reflects exactly this sort of film (and I suspect this film may be one of the models). A silly plot, of course (hey, it's 1959!), but as a film-- glorious! As a reflection of the society, extremely interesting. And as witness to how Hollywood breaks away from the idealistic portrayal of American sexual mores, fascinating.

I first saw this film in 1959 at the Hoyts Double Bay cinema in Sydney when fifteen years old. I loved it then and still do. The ensemble cast is great - in those days the actors acted "naturally" and you "felt" for them in the respective roles. A "glossy" film of the period -the relationships therein still relevant to today's world but now the sexes are on the same level, women would not or should not allow the type of treatment displayed in the past. The soundtrack music is wonderful and it is a delight that Film Score Monthly released the CD in January, 2005. Pity scenes were cut prior to release - even at two hours you want more! I have registered with Amazon for the DVD (they do now have a special page). To view this film in CinemaScope after forty six years of pan and scan will be great. Twentieth Century Fox, please look further into your catalogers of fifties CinemaScope productions for DVD - there IS a large market out there. I await arrival from US of March, 2004 Vanity Fair Special article on the film, which is said to be fifteen pages with many photos on set. Cheers.

Although dated, this film is definitely worth a watch. I saw it about eight times as a teenager when it opened and it changed my life...I just HAD to live in New York. It has great opening shots of the Manhattan skyline with Johnny Mathis crooning "Romance is still...the best of everything..." that rival those of West Side Story. There is a rather stilted performance by the world's REAL first Supermodel, Suzy Parker (sorry about that, Janice D.), but it's great eye-candy! It also offers a bit of insight into late 1950's American mores--our obsession with (and repression of) sex (in the workplace, no less!), romance, and marriage before women's lib. It represents an era in which New York was at it's finest and a super-bitchy performance by Joan Crawford is just the icing on the cake.

I feel very strongly that this film was just like Waiting to Exhale with white females in the 1950's. As in Waiting to Exhale, all of the female characters got mixed up with men who were either married or no good. The only difference, besides the obvious, was that there wasn't much humor in this film. I would even say that it was tragic. Only one of the male characters seemed to be kind and sincere (Hope Lange's guy), but even then there was conflict in this relationship.

The story was about three young women who shared an apartment together and who had hopes and dreams of success. Unfortunately for them, romance didn't seem to come easy although they were young, intelligent and attractive. This movie could be called a tearjerker with the saddest part involving Suzy Parker's character whose obsession of an ex-boyfriend leads to tragedy.

This is a must see.

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.

Meant to be a glossy romance and cautionary tale for girls who dare to think of working Outside The Home, "The Best of Everything" instead is a virtual primer of the root causes of the modern Women's movement: Women (really, girls) can have jobs, but only until they find a man and leave to begin their real lives as homemakers; women are sexual toys, provided to men at work for their amusement; all men are predators and all women are fools; pregnancy is entirely the woman's fault; women who take their jobs seriously are damaged people; women merely exist for the use of men. Sounds like an unremitting screed, and it is -- yet, such is Hollywood's power, the pageant is very watchable (the clothes, the sentimental views of 1959 NYC) and beautiful. A wonderful snapshot of America just a couple of years before "The Feminine Mystique" was published. Must-see for women.

If there's one thing this film does well, its capturing the appeal and allure of New York City. This is a fun time-capsule of a film from this period and it beautifully captures some truly iconic images of midtown Manhattan, and a couple other shots of the city. The beautifully stylized representation of office life, the cloths and apartments of NYC explains why these girls along with millions of others like them dreamed of coming to New York City to achieve their dreams - be it a dream job as a successful executive or a rich husband. As for the story itself, it is a bit cliched and is filled with some stereotypes. Despite some issues I think this film is great fun and worth checking out.

A hugely enjoyable screen version of Rona Jaffe's best-selling pot-boiler about the trials and tribulations, (and, naturally, the loves), of a group of women involved in one way or another in the New York publishing business. Directed by Jean Negulesco, fairly fresh from the success of "Three Coins in a Fountain", and the prototype for the likes of "Sex and the City", except that here the sex all takes place off-screen.

The bright young female talents of the day, (Hope Lange, Diane Baker, Suzy Parker, Martha Hyer), are all nicely cast while Joan Crawford pops up as a Queen Bitch of an editor who could probably eat Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly and spit her out; with absolutely no effort at all she steals the movie. The men include Stephen Boyd, Louis Jourdan, (if it wasn't Rossano Brazzi it had to be Louis Jourdan), Robert Evans, (before he decided, wisely, to go behind the camera) and Brian Aherne. There are more suds on display than you will find in your average launderette but if, like me, you enjoy "Desperate Housewives", not to mention Carrie Bradshaw and company then you will probably love this. A very guilty pleasure.

Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) gets a job at a publishing company staffed almost exclusively by women. She manages to work her way up the company ladder even though her real desire is to marry her sweetheart and settle down. That falls through when he impulsively marries another woman (who has money).

This a very soapy drama that relies heavily on outdated societal expectations, namely among women. All of them want to get married, even the one who gave up the prospect of marriage for career success (Joan Crawford), and will go to extreme lengths to achieve that goal. Some find happiness, others get pregnant out of wedlock, and still others resort to stalking.

In spite of the somewhat ridiculous plot twists, this is an enjoyable and stylish film with a capable and beautiful cast. The sets are reminiscent of Mad Men and they're photographed wonderfully.

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 ****

The only male character who is not guilty of womanizing is Stephen Boyd but he has to be an alcoholic. Hope Lange doesn't remember if she had sex with him the night before but of course there's no moral question there. The rest of the women sans Martha Hyer are all on the prowl but it's the men who are at fault. No man could have written a reverse view book of what the career man had to go through with these man trapping women and not get persecuted. P,S, Look at Mary Agnes' fiance during the bridal shower. He looks sick to death of the dog and pony show that should not be taking place at work.

Nice cinematography, color and how modern New York looked in the 50's, otherwise a one sided piece of crap.

P. S. I highly recommend that you Don't watch the commentary by Sylvia Stoddard and Rona Jaffe. Stoddard hogs the air time and is wrong so many times regarding facts about this and other movies and the stars in it. She's a man bashing annoyance that just drones on and on constantly contradicting herself.

Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) is just killing time getting a job. Her real ambition is to marry Eddie and have a baby.

April (Diane Baker) is too innocent to stay that way for long and falls in love too easily, a dangerous combo.

Greg (Suzy Parker) is a go-getter and wants to be an actress.

All three are doomed for dramatics in 'The Best of Everything', a 1959 soap opera/morality play/sometimes solid movie that is aging by the second.

Set in the cut-throat world of paperback publishing, its not as trashy as "Valley of the Dolls" but not as vanilla as "Three Coins in the Fountain."

The men in the mix - Brian Aherne, Stephen Boyd, Louis Jourdan and Robert Evans - are slick, well-dressed and no good, for the most part. Aherne is the resident sexual offender - will pinch anything walking by, and makes unwanted advances right and left. His character is offensive as hell, but its not played seriously at all. Harassment hadn't been discovered yet, I guess. Boyd works there, too, although you never see him actually doing anything. He's too busy being older, wiser and drunker. Evans is abroad just so Diane Baker can suffer in style - he's a rich kid who's gotten her in 'trouble' so instead of marrying her, as promised, he's taking her to get an 'operation.'

Jourdan is a director who mistakenly has an affair with Parker. They share a fight scene which is fairly no-holds barred, in a movie like this anyway, but the scene is ultimately ruined by Parker's histronics. She ends up nearly stalking him, and she really didn't deserve such a lousy fate, her bad acting notwithstanding.

Joan Crawford breathes fire as Amanda Farrow, the resident 'witch' who is automatically rude and dismissive of any of her legion of secretaries. Well they are younger, aren't they? Isn't that sufficient reason to hate a person? Caroline doesn't think so, as she admirably stands up to Miss Farrow every chance she gets. Crawford only gets to let loose once, when she tells her married boyfriend 'you can your rabbit-faced wife can both go to hell' and slams down the phone. You never get to see the poor soul who dare crosses her.

Martha Hyer's 'storyline', as it were, is extremely weak, and she is painfully over-the-top as an unmarried mother. Short of wearing a huge "W" (for 'whore') on her cardigan, she walks around like a pathetic mess for most of her screen time. Even worse, she is not given the courtesy of having it all 'tied up', one way or the other, at the end. It won't matter that much, but still..

Its painfully obvious this all took place in a totally different world. People were nicer to one another for the most part and work was not a drag but something exciting, for a girl from outside NYC anyway.

One unconvincing drunk scene aside, Hope Lange helps it seem reasonably real as Caroline, who at least has more than one side to her character.

I admire that women are seen having an opinion, a chance and a choice. Not that its not wrapped in a nice bow, but it makes some points for equality. In 1959 that was probably noteworthy and possibly controversial. 7/10.

"The Best of Everything" is a film I had never even heard of until the day I watched it, which honestly is kind of a shame. This is a really solid movie which is held back by some certain problems.

The three different stories that effect the three main characters of the film are all incredibly interesting in their own rights, and are all grounds for amazing films on their own. However the film is doing a constant juggling act with these three stories and thus the tone of the film is all over the place. In one scene it's a haunting psychological horror with an interesting use of camera angles and shadow, the next it's a melodrama about a careless lover and after that it's a cosy office comedy. It's a bit jarring at times, all the scenes work on their own but when they're put together it has some less-than-excellent results.

Other than that this is a really good movie with a knockout cast. It's just the tonal problems that stop it from being something really special.