The Best of Everything (1959)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Film: B-

 

 

This is precisely the film that if you understood 2003’s Down With Love than you will appreciate the dated humor this little classic.  The Best of Everything at one point in time (such as the late 50’s when it came out) would have been like a jab at Hollywood and society in general with the new sexual morality that was becoming widespread. 

 

The film stars Hope Lange who upon her graduation from college is off to a big publisher for work.  She is hired at first as a secretary (go figure) and ends up being the editor.  She immediately finds that ‘sex’ seems to be the real issue and add to that Robert Evans (in one of his few actor roles before becoming a big time producer) and it is also interesting to see Joan Crawford in a non-spotlight form, which is said to be the case since at the time she was in debt and needed the job. 

 

One thing is for sure and that is this film is really glossy in its style and presentation.  The 2.35 X 1 anamorphically enhanced picture is not Fox’s best work to date, but still quite solid and good.  The film was shot in CinemaScope by cinematographer William C. Mellor, who was an established cameraman in his own right working in various formats including Todd-AO and had done some good work with Fox a few years prior with Peyton Place (reviewed on this site) as a director of photography and 1959’s The Diary of Anne Frank (also reviewed on this site).  He was also the D.P. on one of my personal favorites 1956’s Giant, which those few titles alone are enough to give any resume some serious weight. 

 

The print here contains some of the films natural grain that gives it a nice film-like quality with detail being relatively sharp overall and colors looking well balanced.  You can see the limitations around the 52:30 mark where you can barely read the names on the doors behind the women in the office.  This was probably easy to read before this print became generations old.  My speculation is that this is not taken from the original camera negative, but rather an interpositive, but that’s just a guess. 

 

The sound was very pleasing for being an older film and the benefit here is that Fox likes to place the audio in Dolby Digital Stereo as well as Dolby Digital 4.0, which is great to have options.  Purists always like to gripe when they don’t get the original sound mix, but when you compare these back to back you can hear that the 4.0 mix gives a better ambiance and approximates the sound design a bit better.  Both seem to have the slightest trace of hiss, which is negligible and dialogue is clear and straightforward. 

 

Extras are on the medium side of things with a commentary track by author Rona Jaffe and Historian Sylvia Stoddard, who come across very knowledgeable and informative and are a nice addition in this case.  The only other extras here are the films trailer and footage from the films premiere. 

 

I would highly recommend this film on the following conditions.  If you are a sucker for those over-the-top melodramatic soap opera stories or if you are a technical junkie and love old films that used formats like CinemaScope and relish in the glory days.  Newer audiences won’t really get much out of this one upon more than just one viewing so its hard to really recommend something for just a one time around type of film.

 

 

-   Nate Goss