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The Best of Everything

  • 19591959
  • ApprovedApproved
  • 2h 1m
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
2.1K
YOUR RATING
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
  • IMDbPro
Brian Aherne, Diane Baker, Stephen Boyd, Joan Crawford, Robert Evans, Martha Hyer, Louis Jourdan, Hope Lange, and Suzy Parker in The Best of Everything (1959)
An expose of the lives and loves of Madison Avenue working girls and their higher ups.
Play trailer2:55
1 Video
54 Photos
  • Drama
  • Romance

An expose of the lives and loves of Madison Avenue working girls and their higher ups.An expose of the lives and loves of Madison Avenue working girls and their higher ups.An expose of the lives and loves of Madison Avenue working girls and their higher ups.

IMDb RATING
6.6/10
2.1K
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Jean Negulesco
  • Writers
    • Edith Sommer(screenplay)
    • Mann Rubin(screenplay)
    • Rona Jaffe(novel)
  • Stars
    • Hope Lange
    • Stephen Boyd
    • Suzy Parker
Top credits
  • Director
    • Jean Negulesco
  • Writers
    • Edith Sommer(screenplay)
    • Mann Rubin(screenplay)
    • Rona Jaffe(novel)
  • Stars
    • Hope Lange
    • Stephen Boyd
    • Suzy Parker
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 62User reviews
    • 21Critic reviews
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 2 Oscars
      • 2 nominations total

    Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 2:55
    Trailer

    Photos54

    Diane Baker, Stephen Boyd, Joan Crawford, Robert Evans, Brett Halsey, Martha Hyer, Louis Jourdan, Hope Lange, and Suzy Parker in The Best of Everything (1959)
    Stephen Boyd, Joan Crawford, and Hope Lange in The Best of Everything (1959)
    Stephen Boyd, Joan Crawford, and Hope Lange in The Best of Everything (1959)
    The Best of Everything (1959)
    Diane Baker and Robert Evans in The Best of Everything (1959)
    Robert Evans in The Best of Everything (1959)
    The Best of Everything (1959)
    Robert Evans and Hope Lange in The Best of Everything (1959)
    Stephen Boyd and Hope Lange in The Best of Everything (1959)
    Stephen Boyd and Hope Lange in The Best of Everything (1959)
    Robert Evans in The Best of Everything (1959)
    Joan Crawford and Hope Lange in The Best of Everything (1959)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Hope Lange
    Hope Lange
    • Caroline Benderas Caroline Bender
    Stephen Boyd
    Stephen Boyd
    • Mike Riceas Mike Rice
    Suzy Parker
    Suzy Parker
    • Gregg Adamsas Gregg Adams
    Martha Hyer
    Martha Hyer
    • Barbara Lamontas Barbara Lamont
    Diane Baker
    Diane Baker
    • April Morrisonas April Morrison
    Brian Aherne
    Brian Aherne
    • Fred Shalimaras Fred Shalimar
    Robert Evans
    Robert Evans
    • Dexter Keyas Dexter Key
    Brett Halsey
    Brett Halsey
    • Eddie Harrisas Eddie Harris
    Donald Harron
    Donald Harron
    • Sidney Carteras Sidney Carter
    Sue Carson
    • Mary Agnesas Mary Agnes
    Linda Hutchings
    Linda Hutchings
    • Janeas Jane
    Lionel Kane
    • Paul Landersas Paul Landers
    Ted Otis
    Ted Otis
    • Dr. Ronnie Woodas Dr. Ronnie Wood
    Louis Jourdan
    Louis Jourdan
    • David Savageas David Savage
    Joan Crawford
    Joan Crawford
    • Amanda Farrowas Amanda Farrow
    Gertrude Astor
    Gertrude Astor
    • Leading Woman in Playas Leading Woman in Play
    • (uncredited)
    Alan Austin
    • Billas Bill
    • (uncredited)
    Joseph Bardo
    Joseph Bardo
    • Policemanas Policeman
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Jean Negulesco
    • Writers
      • Edith Sommer(screenplay)
      • Mann Rubin(screenplay)
      • Rona Jaffe(novel)
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
    • All cast & crew

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    Storyline

    Edit
    With her unofficial fiancé Eddie Harris studying in England for a year, Radcliffe educated Caroline Bender decides to get her first ever job as a secretary at Manhattan located Fabian Publishing, which offers its employees "the best of everything". There, she finds her story is somewhat similar to all the other secretaries, who are biding their time in the secretarial pool either before getting married - to a current or future beau - or moving on to their dream job. In the latter category is aspiring actress Gregg Adams, who with fellow secretary, the naive and inexperienced April Morrison, become Caroline's new roommates. Caroline also finds that as a secretary to the editors, she has to learn the special needs and foibles of each. They include the "witch" Amanda Farrow whose demanding exterior masks a truly lonely woman, the aging Lothario Fred Shalimar, and the understanding Mike Rice, whose best friend is a bottle of booze. The path to true happiness for each of Caroline, Gregg and April has its bumps along the way. After an incident in her personal life as well as one at work, Caroline's life plans change to thoughts of being one of the editors. Both Amanda and Mike hope that Caroline doesn't get this wish, each hoping for a different reason. —Huggo
    • scotch whiskey
    • brandy
    • new york city
    • actress
    • publishing house
    • 14 more
    • Plot summary
    • Add synopsis
    • Taglines
      • THESE ARE THE GIRLS who want the best of everything... but often settle for a lot less!
    • Genres
      • Drama
      • Romance
    • Certificate
      • Approved
    • Parents guide
      • Add content advisory

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Joan Crawford, then on the board of directors of Pepsi, managed to swing a brief quasi product plug for the soft drink by having an unmistakable Pepsi machine (with the red, white, and blue Pepsi logo, but sans the word "Pepsi") installed in the secretaries' on-screen break room.
    • Goofs
      A huge palm tree is visible during a company picnic supposedly set on an estate near New York City - a botanical impossibility.
    • Quotes

      Amanda Farrow: Now you and your rabbit-faced wife can both go to hell!

    • Connections
      Featured in Playboy's Penthouse: Episode #1.1 (1959)
    • Soundtracks
      The Best of Everything
      by Sammy Cahn and Alfred Newman

      Johnny Mathis sings during the opening credits

      Also sung by a chorus at the end

      Played often in the score

    User reviews62

    Review
    Top review
    7/10
    "The Women" with the men this time
    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.
    helpful•25
    3
    • schappe1
    • Feb 27, 2006

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • October 9, 1959 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Najbolje od svega
    • Filming locations
      • Sheridan Square, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
    • Production companies
      • Jerry Wald Productions
      • The Company of Artists
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $2,500,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 1 minute
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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    Brian Aherne, Diane Baker, Stephen Boyd, Joan Crawford, Robert Evans, Martha Hyer, Louis Jourdan, Hope Lange, and Suzy Parker in The Best of Everything (1959)
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