Blu-ray Review The Best of Everything Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

The Best of Everything Blu-ray Review

Positioned midway between Fox's featherweight comedy of How to Marry a Millionaire and the overheated melodramatics of Valley of the Dolls, Jean Negulesco’s The Best of Everything likewise features three young career girls coming to the Big Apple on the hunt for fame, fortune, rich husbands, or any convenient combination of those objectives. The film allowed Fox’s rising contract players to indulge in some really juicy roles in a Cinemascope drama that’s colorful, sophisticated, and, well, increasingly soapy. In retrospect, the virtues and peccadillos of the era don’t always age well, but there are some fine star performances, and the director certainly shows a sure hand with this kind of material.

Studio: Fox

Distributed By: Twilight Time

Video Resolution and Encode: 1080P/AVC

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HDMA

Subtitles: English SDH

Rating: Not Rated

Run Time: 2 Hr. 1 Min.

Package Includes: Blu-ray

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Disc Type: BD50 (dual layer)

Region: All

Release Date: 07/14/2015

MSRP: $29.95

The Production Rating: 3.5/5

Waiting for her unofficial fiancé Eddie Harris (Brett Halsey) to return from yearlong business in Europe, young Radcliffe graduate Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) takes a secretarial job at Fabian Publications working for, among others, the very demanding editor Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford). Fellow secretaries April Morrison (Diane Baker), eager to fall in love and get married, and Gregg Adams (Suzy Parker), an actress working at Fabian to pay expenses while she auditions for Broadway plays, decide to split the rent on an apartment while they’re all still single. Each woman has romantic misadventures during her year in the city: Caroline with editor Mike Rice (Stephen Boyd) who serves as her conscience as she pines for Eddie after he marries someone else, April with wealthy playboy Dexter Key (Robert Evans) who pressures her to show her love for him in a more physical fashion, and Gregg with her director David Savage (Louis Jourdan) who’s notorious for sleeping with actresses in his shows and then discarding them like yesterday’s newspaper.

 

Adapted from the best-selling book by Rona Jaffe, the screenplay by Edith Sommer and Mann Rubin makes mainly cosmetic changes suitable for Production Code Hollywood of the era (a miscarriage instead of an abortion, for example) and downplays some other important characters from the book for lack of time (Martha Hyer’s assistant editor character who has her own unhappy relationship with a married man appears in only a few unsatisfying scenes), but it’s basically the same narrative mirroring the mores of the era with women seeking careers only as stopovers until marriage and the men almost to a person being complete cads. Aside from Mike Rice (who has his own challenges with alcohol consumption but does have a Prince Charming moment where a drunk Caroline who begs him to make love to her is instead put securely to bed on his couch), every principal man in the story is a cheater, a lecher, or both, and it’s not pretty to watch as these women allow themselves to be used and abused by these bounders. Director Jean Negulesco handles all of the many transitions between the three basically separate plots smoothly, and being an old hand with Cinemascope (including being among the earliest to use the process in How to Marry a Millionaire), handles the widescreen frame with ease often spreading actors across the width of the screen or positioning two actors on opposite sides of the frame to use all of the available viewing area.

 

Hope Lange gets and deserves top billing, her portrait of a young woman who transitions into a satisfying career from earlier aborted marriage plans being by far the most interesting and most focused of the characters in the movie. She does have that one drunk scene where the actress’ choices seem artificial and unsuccessful, but she’s otherwise the undisputed star of the movie. Diane Baker’s naïve, bubbly April who gets a nasty taste of reality with one of the movie’s most loathsome characters is less ingratiating, and the movie’s eventual happy ending for her with a handsome doctor is one of the more eye-rolling moments of the movie. Suzy Parker’s Gregg is the least well written character in the piece, not aided by Parker’s mediocre skills as an actress, and her overheated deterioration after one rejection (a woman looking like her could have her choice of men in Manhattan with one snap of her fingers, not needing to crouch on fire escapes or rifle through the trash cans of her former lover) is likewise not a worthy addition to the picture. Stephen Boyd’s character, much changed from the book, is the most admirable of the men (there really isn’t any competition) even if his character is little more than a glamorous cipher. Brian Aherne as the company’s editor-in-chief who pinches every pretty girl in sight and waits to pounce on any unsuspecting girl in the office, is a relic of the days before sexual harassment in the workplace became a cause, but it’s to the actor’s credit that he retains a certain likability despite his lecherous qualities. Robert Evans’s weak performance as the caddish Dexter shows why he had far more success on the production side of the business rather than before the cameras. Joan Crawford plays one of her sedately steely bitches here, a career woman who’s simply too hardened to the business world to ever be able to change.

Video Rating: 4.5/5  3D Rating: NA

The film’s 2.35:1 Cinemascope theatrical aspect ratio is retained in this 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. For those who found the timing of Fox’s Blu-ray of Desk Set not to their liking, they’re not likely to like much about this transfer either. The rest of us can revel in the spotless quality of the transfer with usually very good to excellent sharpness and color that’s solid and consistent with appealing flesh tones. Occasionally, contrast in low light gives the picture a dated quality, and black levels are not the most striking feature of the transfer. Overall, though, it’s a winner. The movie has been divided into 24 chapters.

Audio Rating: 4/5

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix offers very good fidelity even if the dialogue track sometimes seems a trifle underpowered when mixed with Alfred Newman’s lush score and the sound effects of busy offices and the street sounds of New York City. There are no age-related problems with hiss or crackling artifacts to mar the listening experience.

Special Features Rating: 3/5

Audio Commentary: film historian Sylvia Stoddard offers an entertaining and informative historical commentary on the movie (with only one minor error I caught saying director Jean Negulesco won an Oscar for Johnny Belinda) supplemented with frequent comments from original author Rona Jaffe who compares and contrasts her book’s narrative with the movie plot.

 

Isolated Score Track: Alfred Newman’s beautifully evocative score is presented in marvelous sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo.

 

Fox Movietone Newsreel (1:09, SD): brief coverage of the movie’s premiere in New York.

 

Theatrical Trailer (2:53, SD)

 

Six-Page Booklet: contains color stills from the movie, original poster art on the back cover, and film historian Julie Kirgo’s extensive essay on the movie.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

A product of its time but still an entertaining, lush Fox melodrama of the era in glorious Cinemascope, The Best of Everything looks smashing in its high definition debut via Twilight Time. There are only 3,000 copies of this Blu-ray available. Those interested should go to www.screenarchives.com to see if product is still in stock. Information about the movie can also be found via their website at www.twilighttimemovies.com or via Facebook at www.facebook.com/twilighttimemovies.

Reviewed By: Matt Hough

Support HTF when you buy this title:

It's a fabulous movie. Joan Crawford and her "rabbit-faced wife" speech is sensational. Too bad Martha Hyer's role was chopped to ribbons - you can see the potential in her character but she gets lost jumbled in with the other three stories being told.

Alfred Newman was Oscar-nominated for Best Song.

This was a blind-buy for me and I loved it. Soapy, but highly enjoyable. And you can certainly see it's influence on films as diverse as Valley of the Dolls, 9 to 5 and The Devil Wears Prada.

And the caps (shared here http://imgur.com/a/R29IV/all) are delicious.


Again the teal reigns supreme, like so many other Fox films ("The King and I", "Desk Set", "Inn of the Sixth Happiness", "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing") on Blu from the same decade. It *must* have been how the films were originally intended to look, surely? I can't think of any other reason. But I love the creamy teal.

Does anyone know what happened to Martha Hyer's role in this film? Her character is the best thing in the not-very-good source novel and is presented here in very different situations. Were more scenes shot but then cut or was her role as slight and as insignificant as presented in the film? I have some stills not in the film but I don't know if they are outtakes or just publicity photos.

The commentary alludes to the scenes being shot and then taken out for time reasons.

Matt Hough said:

The commentary alludes to the scenes being shot and then taken out for time reasons.

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Thank you. I have the disc but have not had time to watch it yet, let alone listen to the commentary. This is one commentary I shall pay close attention to!

another absolutey stunning Fox transfer

Is it just me or why do all the Fox films from the 50s have a teal and rust-colored look to them?

warnerbro said:

Is it just me or why do all the Fox films from the 50s have a teal and rust-colored look to them?

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It's just you.

While the standard DVD and 35mm and 16mm lowfade prints that I've seen in the recent past didn't have the bluish-green teal highlights that the new Blu-ray has, I do think it's a nice disc. Certainly not as over the top as THE KING AND I in this regard.


Could have done without bluish-green colored desks, skies and men's sport coats though.

It is another stunner from Twilight Time or Screen Archives or Fox or all of them put together. These are all so well done. It does seem every scene is teal-colored. But the detail in the faces and basically everything is amazing! Very good commentary with the writer of the book.

Does anyone here really know what teal IS? Because there's not a trace of it in this transfer. There is a LOT of BLUE - true blue - TEAL is not true BLUE. It looks just like every other Fox release of that era. If you don't like that look that is not the problem of those doing these transfers, who, IMO, know what they're doing.

haineshisway said:

Does anyone here really know what teal IS? Because there's not a trace of it in this transfer. There is a LOT of BLUE - true blue - TEAL is not true BLUE. It looks just like every other Fox release of that era. If you don't like that look that is not the problem of those doing these transfers, who, IMO, know what they're doing.

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Bruce, you don't need to be so overly sensitive to my post. I've liked most of the transfers that have come out of late and am not, generally, one who complains on this forum. I love Fox, I love Twilight Time. I respect you and your opinions.


I also work in the preservation industry and have worked on the negative for this title in the past. Also, as mentioned before, have seen LPP lowfade 35mm and 16mm prints. Not this much blue (except from that caused by color loss in the neg) or blue-green, or teal, to be found there. And I do know what teal looks like. More green than blue, but definitely in the ballpark of what I'm seeing in some scenes here.


I see this look with a lot of current films. And as a major restorationist at one of the studios told me, he's forever battling with post house colorists because many want to make films from 50+ years ago, look like an UNDERWORLD sequel. I have seen colorists similarly alter the color like this. They can now lean the color scheme towards a particular hue, while still balancing white levels and keeping other colors where they should be, or close to it, on the fly. Never mind if it was ever intended to look like that.


Again, overall I like the transfer, but did think the color to be a bit distracting in some scenes. Blue-green desks, sportcoats, bricks, skies, etc. Not all scenes, but enough.


I still recommend people go out and buy the disc. It undoubtedly will never look better on Blu-ray. Though I don't think it's quite as good as it could have been and I would have preferred the color grading used for the prior preservation and printing work on this title. IMHO. It's still a quality product.

Dear Eastmancolor:


Just want to sincerely thank you for your clear and unbiased commentary about Fox's Cinemascope teal and blue lean of late which I am decidedly not a fan of. Yes, The Best of Everything, like so many other Fox releases, sports a cleaner, sharper and less artifact-plagued transfer than previously available. But again, in my opinion, the implosion of color is a complete fail, quite simply, because it in no way replicates the look of the movie when it premiered and, of course, is not indicative of DeLuxe color from this period.


Too often, in expressing a similar opinion to yours, though without your obvious knowledge and expertise, I have been slammed on these forums for my commentary as being overly critical and (cough) just wrong. I suspect some who attack are mere shills for the industry and/or colorists responsible for these incorrectly color graded transfers. But it is VERY gratifying to know that at least one person with more experience in such matters is seeing the same thing I am and willing to point it out. There are no true reds in this transfer, greens favoring a slight inclination toward teal and every surface of steel or concrete that ought to be silver smooth, grey or granite toned is instead blue, navy, or a dark and unflattering ruddy blue/black. Personally, I find the color exceptionally unattractive and untrue to its source.


In listening to the audio commentary track I was particularly in tune to Rona Jaffe's comment that the audience gasped at the debut of Suzy Parker, uncovering her scarf-wrapped head to reveal sultry auburn tresses beneath, since, on this transfer, Parker's hair is not auburn at all, but a flat, muddy brown. If nothing else, this says the transfer Jaffe was viewing at the time of producing this audio commentary and the one we currently have in hi-def were NOT gleaned from the same print source and prove the current color grading is considerable off from where it ought to be! I too would have preferred the prior color grading used in the previous preservation and printing work to have been reproduced (albeit via cleaner elements than those used for the DVD) on this hi-def title. Best.

It's the cyan channel. It's just too heavy. White shirts are white, but have blue shadows. Fox famously pushed blue, but this is too much. It isn't how the films were meant to look, not by a long shot.

Matt Hough said:

The commentary alludes to the scenes being shot and then taken out for time reasons.

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To her dying day, Crawford (rightly or wrongly) blamed Hope Lange's influence with Jerry Wald for the removal of her famous drunk scene and claimed it was done to purposely diminish her impact in the film. For what it's worth, Bette Davis had almost identical feelings towards Hope Lange after POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES two years later.


It's highly possible that Martha's "plot-ectomy" may have evolved along similar lines.

Will Krupp said:

Martha's "plot-ectomy" may have resulted from a similar line of thought.

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I think it was simply time-restraints that prevented the full exploration of Martha Hyer's role in the film, which is pushing 2 hours with just a small handful of her scenes.

Matt,

Thanks for another great review!
I bought this blu-ray from TT, in part because of yours and Mr Harris's comments about the Blu-ray.

I watched this film last night with my mother, and she said, "I used to watch films like this all the time when I was a teenager." We talked about it more today and is resulted in a great conversation about what it was like to grow up in this era and how this film really reflects my mother's feeling about the pressures she felt about marriage and career being an "either/or" choice she was expected to make.

I listened to the commentary track this morning and it definitely impacted my appreciation of this film for the better, too.

Thanks again, Matt!