Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Best of Everything Blu-ray Movie Review

Mad Women.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 25, 2015

There was a rather interesting socioeconomic phenomenon in America in the wake of World War II having to do with so-called “working women.” Females had of course been entering the workforce in veritable droves for untold decades, and had indeed been recruited (so to speak) to work in typically male enclaves during the war, but once hostilities ceased, there seemed to be an almost culture wide wish for things to return to some perceived “normalcy” where the men went out into the world as breadwinners and the women stayed at home to mind the kids and take care of the hearth. Interestingly, though, by the mid- to late fifties, young women who had in fact been little girls who could very well have seen their mothers or older sisters trundling off to jobs during World War II were attempting to make their way in careers, though often as a stepping stone to that magical “degree” known as the MRS. Author Rona Jaffe was one of these very women, and through a combination of luck and fortitude, her job at Fawcett Publications allowed her to make a number of significant contacts in the entertainment industry, including producer Jerry Wald. Casual conversations indicated Wald wanted to make a modern day update of the film that won Ginger Rogers her Academy Award for Best Actress, 1940’s Kitty Foyle. As Jaffe (who died in 2005) relates in the commentary included on this new Blu-ray, she actually went and sought out the book on which the film had been based, read it, and found it “dumb,” and not even the tale of a working woman that Wald seemed to think it was. But Jaffe came away from her read with a couple of salient conclusions: she knew the world of working women quite well, and she at last had the spark of an idea for her first novel, which she knew she could tailor to fit the preconceived notions of what Wald wanted in a film. The Best of Everything hit the best-seller lists in 1958 and was of course optioned by Wald and Fox, but in a gambit somewhat reminiscent of another Fox outing, A Letter to Three Wives, the novel’s quintet of focal characters was reduced to a trio (with a couple of other characters existing as relative outliers). The 1959 film version of The Best of Everything is unabashedly soap operatic (and indeed the novel and film were adapted into an actual soap opera, which had a rather brief run in 1970). Director Jean Negulesco toys with a kind of Douglas Sirkian ambience, albeit without much of the same subtext with which Sirk tended to suffuse his films, and a panoply of then young and promising performers like Hope Lange, Diane Baker and Stephen Boyd trundle through a series of dramatic interludes which may have been at least relatively realistic for a late fifties audience, but which may strike modern day jaundiced eyes as fairly artificial.

Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) is a bright eyed and bushy tailed Radcliffe graduate who responds to an ad promising “the best of everything” as part of the secretarial pool at Manhattan’s Fabian Publications. After acing her typing test, even as potential lothario boss type Mike Rice (Stephen Boyd) eyes her from the side, Caroline is told to fill in for missing secretary Gregg Adams (Suzy Parker). That puts Caroline squarely in the sights of demanding editor Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford), a rhymes-with-witch who seems borderline sadistic in her dealings with Caroline.

Soon enough another newbie shows up, though she’s considerably more harried and less poised than Caroline. April Morrison (Diane Baker) seems to view her new employment as a mere wayside on a trek to the altar, and almost within minutes she seems to be squarely in the sights of her boss, an older guy named Fred Shalimar (Brian Aherne). Later at lunch, Caroline and April actually bump into Gregg, who it turns out is an aspiring actress who’s prone to not coming to work if there’s a promising audition to attend.

Romantic trials and tribulations soon (of course) enter the fray, though initially it’s revealed through a flashback that Caroline thinks she’s waiting for boyfriend Eddie Harris (Brett Halsey) to return from Europe. Caroline in fact ends up jilted, and more or less unwillingly on the rebound finds herself in the arms of Mike. Gregg thinks she’s found true love in the acting world with a notorious womanizer named David Savage (Louis Jourdan). Perhaps surprisingly (at least given an initial clinch), April does not end up with Shalimar, but instead falls for a younger guy named Dexter Key (Robert Evans), who is less about romance (and commitment) and more about sex.

Various traumas ripple through these stories, as well as a more tangential (and brief) sidebar involving Amanda Farrow, with the film getting increasingly sudsy as things progress. It’s hard not to see this film in the wake of at least the first couple seasons of Mad Men, with women trying to find their “place” in a modern working environment, though the film’s emotional ambience is decidedly more florid than the later television series.

Glossy and at times almost laughably hyperbolic (especially with regard to the Gregg storyline, which Negulesco stages like an abstract expressionist depiction of a nervous breakdown), The Best of Everything offers excellent showcases for its performers, including the incredibly lovely Lange, who for whatever reason never seemed to really attain film stardom the way she seemed poised to early in her career (Lange was just coming off of an Oscar nomination for Peyton Place ). Parker, a famous model, is effective in her early scenes in The Best of Everything, but falls victim to overheated plotting and writing later in the film. Baker does great work as a girl who finds herself “in trouble,” in an era where nice folks didn’t talk about things like abortion (and in fact the film evidently circumscribes one of the novel’s plot points in order to make things more palatable for late fifties filmgoing sensibilities). There's a caddish quality to almost all of the men in the film, something that perhaps made The Best of Everything a "women's picture" in more ways than one.

The Best of Everything Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Best of Everything is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. While the elements utilized for this transfer are in largely pristine shape (or have been restored to appear so), my hunch is the color timing on this release is (once again) going to raise some hackles. While a lot of the film looks beautifully lush, with good representations across the entire color spectrum, there's a noticeable prevalence of blue, though some of this can be attributed to the fact that the actual production design of the film exploits that hue in abundance (keep an eye on "minor" elements like chairs and wall color). That said, there are still odd (to my eyes, anyway) blue undertones to things like flesh tones, especially in some of the more dimly lit scenes (some of which can be clearly seen in the screencaptures accompanying this review). That issue aside (which may in fact not even rise to the level of concern for some viewers), this is a wonderfully organic looking presentation, with a good, stable and natural looking fine grain field, and equally natural sharpness and clarity levels. Contrast is just slightly anemic at times, but never overly problematically so. There are no issues with image instability or with compression artifacts.

The Best of Everything Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Best of Everything features a serviceable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that encounters occasional minor prioritization issues, but which supports the film's dialogue, urban soundscape effects and gorgeous Alfred Newman score effortlessly. While not overly immersive, the track boasts excellent fidelity and there are no problems to warrant concern.

The Best of Everything Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.


• Audio Commentary features author Rona Jaffe and film historian Sylvia Stoddard.


• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2:53)


• Fox Movietone Newsreel (480i; 1:09) is a brief look at the premiere, including some of the fashions on display. Let's just say it's a good thing PETA wasn't around in those days.

The Best of Everything Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Best of Everything may have seemed modern and even relatively provocative back in 1959, but it can't help but feel like the vestige of a bygone age to contemporary eyes, not that that's necessarily a bad thing. The film provides nice showcases for a gaggle of then young and on the rise stars, and it's big, glossy and occasionally lurid, kind of like a mash up between Douglas Sirk and Ross Hunter. Technical merits are generally strong, and The Best of Everything comes Recommended.