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Memorable, crazy movie

Just perfect...

How sad is this?

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Copyright 1959 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Paramount: 8 October 1959 (simultaneously at the Normandie from 9 October 1959). U.S. release: October 1959. U.K. release: November 1959. Australian release: 3 March 1960. 121 minutes.SYNOPSIS: The affairs and aspirations of some of the female staff in a New York publishing house.NOTES: Location scenes filmed in New York City. The title song was nominated for an Academy Award, losing out to "High Hopes" from "A Hole in the Head" (which was no loss for Sammy Cahn as he wrote the lyrics for that one too. The music was by James Van Heusen).VIEWER'S GUIDE: Definitely unsuitable for children.COMMENT: The direction is dull, Brian Aherne is wet, but the rest of the cast is interesting - especially Joan Crawford (even though some of her best scenes allegedly ended up on the cutting-room floor because Wald thought that the finished film was too long). Of course, the story is pure soap opera, but it cleaned up at the domestic box-office, coming in third for Fox behind "Can Can" and "From the Terrace" in 1959-60. Despite this success (which was certainly not repeated overseas, where the movie was lucky to retrieve its print and advertising costs), CinemaScope was losing its special allure. As in "How To Marry a Millionaire", the story concerns three girls on the make. But this time they don't want millionaire husbands so much as Success — with sex on the side. Gone is not only the charm and simplicity of the characters, the clear-cut, attractively defined direction of the story, but the style, the flair, the imaginativeness of the storytelling. And so far as CinemaScope is concerned, the film might just as well have been made in standard widescreen.

If your a fan of drama, this movie is for you. Hope Lange stars as Miss Bender, a young woman on the way up out of college after the editor job held by Joan Crawford. The setting is New York Ctity.The project is romance. The industry is office, publishing office. There are several women in this cast who are not well known but who hold their own quite nicely. This 1959 era is sort of out of date with what was coming in the 1960's.This is the rare film that features Stephen Boyd the same year he was doing Ben Hur which won a lot of Oscars this year and Louis Jourdan as powerful men who are after the women in the cast. The best of everything which is the songs title tune, seems to be that these women, within limits, can get everything they want.Being the 1950's, they seem to want love and marriage. Lange's character, Miss Bender, wants a career too. That is a little different for a 1959 setting. That might be the main difference in this film from most films of this period.If you like drama, New York City in the 1950's, or are a fan of Boyd, Jourdan or Hope Lang, this movie is for you. If you like romantic drama, this is your film too. While not a big classic, at least it is a film that tells a story, though a bit outdated today. Its sets look at lot like AMC's Mad Men done years later. In fact, it is story wise.

You can't take this movie seriously.....the plot is predictable and trite, the acting often over the top, the dialog laughable; but it all adds up to great fun! Three "career girls" in the late 1950's find their way to the BIG city and all the evils and temptations their mothers probably warned them about: married men, alcohol, premarital sex, abortion, etc.Then there's Amanda Farrell (Joan Crawford) who did succeed professionally, but whose personal life has been sacrificed for an office with her name on the door.This movie may have been believable 50 years ago, but now it's just great campy fun! Rent/buy it and enjoy.

Although dated, this film is definitely worth a watch. I saw it about eight times as a teenager when it opened and it changed my life...I just HAD to live in New York. It has great opening shots of the Manhattan skyline with Johnny Mathis crooning "Romance is still...the best of everything..." that rival those of West Side Story. There is a rather stilted performance by the world's REAL first Supermodel, Suzy Parker (sorry about that, Janice D.), but it's great eye-candy! It also offers a bit of insight into late 1950's American mores--our obsession with (and repression of) sex (in the workplace, no less!), romance, and marriage before women's lib. It represents an era in which New York was at it's finest and a super-bitchy performance by Joan Crawford is just the icing on the cake.