20th Century-Fox. 121 minutes.
US release: 10/9/59. VHS release: 11/1/95. DVD release: 5/4/05.Encyclopedia Entry • Films Main
The Best of Everything
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20th Century-Fox. 121 minutes.
US release: 10/9/59. VHS release: 11/1/95. DVD release: 5/4/05.
Cast: Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd, Suzy Parker, Martha Hyer, Diane Baker, Brian Aherne, Robert Evans, Brett Halsey, Donald Harron, Sue Carson, Linda Hutchings, Lionel Kane, Ted Otis, June Blair, Myrna Hansen, Alena Murray, Rachel Stephens, Julie Payne. Louis Jordan as David Savage. Joan Crawford as Amanda Farrow.
Credits: From the novel by Rona Jaffe. Screenplay: Edith Sommer and Mann Rubin. Producer: Jerry Wald. Director: Jean Negulesco. Camera: William C. Mellor. Art Direction: Lyle R. Wheeler, Jack Martin Smith, Mark-Lee Kirk. Music: Alfred Newman. Costumes: Adele Palmer. Editor: Robert Simpson. Title song sung by Johnny Mathis.
Awards: Academy Award nominations for Best Costume Design (color)--Adele Palmer, and Best Music (original song)--Alfred Newman, music, and Sammy Cahn, lyrics.
Paul V. Beckley in the New York Herald Tribune (1959):
You need only watch what happens when the camera turns on Joan Crawford in her role of a mean, nervous, frustrated career woman to see what the picture lacks in general. I know this kind of thing, the woman fighting an uphill battle for love, has been a Crawford specialty in recent years, but experience alone won't explain the electricity. Let's admit first off that the script gives her no more than a fingerhold on the story, that it asks her to navigate in two emotional directions at once, and to make a sudden unaccountable change of character in the denouement, but just the same, when she comes on, you wake up and begin to wonder what's going to happen. You feel badly cheated when it turns out finally that they're not going to let you even take a look at her particular married man and that "rabbit-faced" wife of his. All her problems are worked out off-stage, but even so, restricted to a few mean looks and some vitriolic dialogue, Miss Crawford comes near making the rest of the picture look like a distraction.
MonsterHunter website:
If this movie isn't going to get by on the strength of the over-the-hill stardom of its headlining has-been, then how does it fill two hours? Who are these other goofs that populate this woman-eating office, where people spend a lot of time talking about all the work they have to do, but don't actually spend any time doing it?...All of these dumbed down office crises could be excused because of the time period in which this movie was made if there was anything to root for in the protagonists or if they actually accomplished something worthwhile because of their trials. Instead, you have a woman finding Prince Charming in her doctor (woman's fantasy #16), a woman dumping the man who loves her for one more shot at her ex, but then dumping him and finding the new boyfriend still receptive to dating her traitorous ass (woman's fantasy #7), and finally you have the crazy ex-girlfriend falling off her ex's fire escape to her death (men's fantasy #3)... Complete review.
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Todd (June 2005) Rating:
You think you know what you're in for when The Best of Everything begins. Johnny Mathis is crooning the swoonsome theme song while an impossibly well-scrubbed New York City skyline dominates the widescreen; the credits appear to be written with "Barely Pink" Revlon lipstick; fresh-faced Hope Lange makes a perky entrance in a smartly tailored suit and hat, which you almost expect her to throw into the air, beating Mary Richards to the punch. Why, you say to yourself, this will be a fluffy, frothy indulgence. Wrong. The film's tone is remarkably dark and ugly for its time period; it pulls no punches in its depiction of women in the workplace (and society in general) as second class citizens who are mere sexual playthings for the appetites of their (higher-paid) male colleagues and bosses. Despite the glorious DeLuxe color, scrumptious photography, and scads of luxurious costumes (where do these secretaries store, much less pay for, all their gorgeous gowns?), The Best of Everything is depressingly downbeat. Even with adultery, pre-marital sex, workplace romances, alcholic lechers and two-timing society playboys thrown into the mix--all the ingredients are there for a fizzy cocktail of a Peyton Place-style melodrama--the result is almost unbearably un-entertaining. It is a pleasure, then, when Joan Crawford appears on the screen as Amanda Farrow, the bane of every secretary's existance. Playing a hardened, embittered career woman--quite a change for Crawford, who, despite an increasing steeliness to her characterizations, clung to her romantic leading lady status well into her fifties--Crawford injects some much-needed camp and bitchiness into the leaden proceedings. Unfortunately, Crawford's screen time is negligible; the main story revolves around three of 20th Century Fox's newer starlets, Hope Lange, Diane Baker and the fabulous supermodel of the time, Suzy Parker. That Crawford's few scenes effectively blow everyone else's off the screen certainly goes without saying; one wishes the nighttime serial format had blossomed a bit earlier--it would have been much more interesting to see The Best of Everything unfold in that manner, and to delve deeper into the Amanda Farrow character. With the arrival of The Best of Everything on DVD, my suggestion is this: use the scene selection skip directly to any involving Crawford. All the rest, you may file under "Trash--NO!!!" |
See the Audio:Recordings page for more info and to link to songs from the film.
