The Best of Everything

The Best of Everything is a 1959 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco from a screenplay by Edith Sommer and Mann Rubin, based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Rona Jaffe. It stars Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd, Suzy Parker, Martha Hyer, Diane Baker, Brian Aherne, Robert Evans, Louis Jourdan, and Joan Crawford. The film follows the professional careers and private lives of three women who share a small apartment in New York City and work together at a paperback publishing firm. Alfred Newman wrote the musical score, the last under his longtime contract as 20th Century-Fox's musical director. Plot Recent Radcliffe College graduate Caroline Bender is hired as a secretary at Fabian Publishing Company. She works for Amanda Farrow, a bitter, demanding, jealous middle-aged editor who resents Caroline and suspects she wants her job. She is having an affair with a married man, and it is not going well. Caroline meets two other young women in the typing pool — April Morrison, a naïve, enthusiastic girl from Colorado, and Gregg Adams, a glamorous aspiring actress. They invite Caroline, who is commuting from her family's home In Connecticut, to share their tiny apartment. April is assigned to work for the lecherous editor-in-chief, Mr. Shalimar, who persuades her to work late one night in a ploy to seduce her. When she rejects him, he is undaunted and also continues to pursue other young female employees. At an alcohol-fueled office party, an intoxicated Mr. Shalimar makes sexual overtures to Barbara Lamont while they are alone in her office. Sidney Carter, a co-worker with whom she is having an affair, intervenes after he hears Barbara yelling. Shalimar shows no remorse over the incident and suggests that, because Lamont has been married and divorced, she should expect such advances from male co-workers. Gregg is cast in a play directed by David Savage and the two become lovers. Gregg is demoted to understudy when she repeatedly flubs her lines. She becomes obsessed with David, and she’ll is eventually replaced in the play. After David ends his affair with Gregg, she becomes mentally unstable and starts stalking him. While lurking outside his apartment, she is startled by a boisterous neighbor and panics. Gregg flees to a fire escape and falls to her death when her high-heeled shoe gets caught in the grating.