by Frank Calvillo
They just don’t make ’em like this anymore. The 1959 adaptation of the bestselling novel The Best of Everything makes its official Blu-ray debut, remaining as beautiful and as powerful as ever in its take on limitless dreams and big city life.
The Best of Everything centers on three girls: Caroline (Hope Lange), April (Diane Baker), and Gregg (Suzy Parker), three friends who work in the secretarial pool at at top New York publishing house alongside a number of interesting characters. There’s the handsome magazine editor Mike Rice (Stephen Boyd), the wolfish top executive Mr. Shalimar (Brian Aherne), and the witchy senior editor Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford). Throughout the course of the film we bear witness to all the upswings and downfalls that happen to this complex assortment of men and women.
This film is the epitome of the type of ’50s melodrama that studios were churning out by the truckload. In fact, you can spot many of the film’s dramatic turns coming before the film’s lush score starts up again. There’s plenty of heartache and triumph to go around, and no character is spared his or turn at a couple of sudsy moments. Yet there’s a real truth to the dramatics in The Best of Everything. Topics such as sexual harassment, alcoholism, abortion, and mental instability are dealt with in ways which were decidedly frank and honest for a ’50s flick. At a time when the more ugly aspects of life were simply swept under the rug or only hinted at by Hollywood, the film’s bravery at refusing to flinch when its characters must deal with real life earns it a credibility absent from most films of the decade.
On a deeper level, The Best of Everything is a look at that time in a young woman’s life when she actually had to choose a life for herself and decide who she is and what she wants. In an era when women either went to work or had a family, but seldom both, we see Caroline, April, and Gregg struggle with not only trying to decide which they wanted, but why they wanted it, how to get it, and finally try to make peace with their individual outcomes.
It’s through this notion that the film’s title becomes incredibly clear. The best of everything represents each girl’s carefully constructed image of her future. Whether it be in the home or in the big city, to each one, their idealized vision of life is truly the best that the world has to offer. It’s there. They know it’s there and they will do whatever it takes to make it theirs.
It helps greatly that The Best of Everything is such a well-constructed film on virtually every level.
Unlike most ensemble films, this movie weaves in and out of its stories seamlessly, unforced and with enough time for each character to feel like real people who genuinely change throughout the course of the movie. Meanwhile, the beauty of the cinematography featuring a gorgeous New York and the music serves to undercut the harshness of some of the plot points without making them any less valid. In short, this is melodrama stained with beautiful grime.
THE PACKAGE
The Best of Everything has received one of the most impressive transfers of any ’50s movie I’ve seen in ages. The sharpness, sound, and color throughout are all simply flawless.
Aside from a trailer and vintage premiere footage, there’s an interesting commentary track from Rona Jaffe, the author of the original novel, who is quick to point out the film’s surprising attention to detail regarding the depiction of the secretary’s world that it almost gives The Best of Everything a documentary-like edge.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Though it may be considered a pre-cursor to Valley of the Dolls, The Best of Everything features plenty of heft and pathos to legitimately stand on its own. This is an excellent piece of ’50s filmmaking which beautifully shows the eternal quest to finding the kind of life which so many believe guarantees nothing but happiness.