the Fifties were 'the best of everything'

The Best of Everything. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation; screenplay by Edith Sommer and Mann Rubin; directed by Jean Negulesco. Based on the novel by Rona Jaffe. Director of photography, William C. Mellor; film editor, Robert Simpson; music, Alfred Newman. Performers: Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd, Suzy Parker, Martha Hyer, Diane Baker, Brian Aherne, Robert Evans, Louis Jourdan, Joan Crawford.
Summary: It’s 1959, a time of post-WW2 prosperity and Cold War angst. New York is the publishing and intellectual capital of America. Four typists at a publishing house fight to have their own careers and find true love in the ruthless New York business world.

style ****
substance ***1/2

The Best of Everything is often lumped together with late Fifties and early Sixties camp classics like Valley of the Dolls (recently reviewed in these pages) and Peyton Place. To be exact, Dolls appeared nearly a decade later, in 1967, and in the opinion of the writer, is a much different, and ultimately inferior, work to both aforementioned titles. But more on that later.

First, it must be admitted that said comparisons are not without merit. And inasmuch as Everything’s über Fifties gestalt might solidify its status as the original Valley of the Dolls, it also harkens back to those ‘women’s pictures’ of the early Thirties which starred the likes of Kay Francis, Ruth Chatterton, Joan Blondell and, yes, Joan Crawford, the present film’s nominal but mostly invisible star.

Indeed, there are striking similarities to Valley of the Dolls: three ingénues try their hand at the big time, and one meets with a tragic end. There’s also an intimidating, tough-as-nails old pro that the ingénues secretly aspire to. In both films this character is portrayed by a mega-star from cinema’s Golden Age. Both films are set in an artsy milieu, and both have male romantic interests that cut pretty poor figures, caddish in one film and weak and dull in the other. There is an equivocal ending in which the main ingénue literally walks out of the picture. And of course both have lushly romantic music scores with memorable title tunes.

Even with all the topical elements, Best of Everything has aged pretty well. The characters and their concerns still resonate, and moreover, the production elements are first-rate and everything works together in beautiful synergy, all contributing to a very easy-to-watch cinematic experience. An exception: the much-praised mod office interiors. Truth to tell they didn’t do that much for me. I’m more partial to the coffee shop where the principals like to hang out, or theatre auteur David Wilder Savage’s book- and African art-laden bachelor pad.

The opening pan of New York City with the lush theme music sets the tone and recalls the beginning of Love is a Many Splendored Thing (the panorama in that film was Hong Kong), with music again by Fox mainstay Alfred Newman [1]. Johnny Mathis’s silky voice croons the lilting title tune and we can be forgiven for thinking this one will be another campy soaper. But no, it’s not. And in fact it wouldn’t be too far off the mark to say the opening sequence is the best part of the entire film from a purely cinematic point of view. The street scenes of folks going to work are also reminiscent of the, more frantic, opening of North by Northwest, which came out the same year.

Best of Everything gives us a glamorous, well-scrubbed New York that was the center of the universe, populated by beautiful people and beautiful people-wannabes in which all the women wear Dior dresses and the men favor gray suits. A Weegee’s New York it's not: for all the inter-office backbiting in the story, from a purely visual standpoint there’s not a hint of the literally dark New York we see in other films of the era (TV shows, too), most blisteringly so in the sulfuric, gloves-off late noir classic Sweet Smell of Success. But I digress.

As for the principals, Best of Everything is for the most part exceptionally well cast. In what’s little more than an extended cameo, Joan Crawford is wonderful playing a very Joan Crawford-esque character to which she manages to bring some nice shadings. And for all of Joan’s (in)famous scenery chewing, this is actually a rather restrained performance. It helps that she’s ably directed by former collaborator Jean Negulesco. Usually thought of as a Forties film noir specialist, here he shows a nice touch for a Fifties aesthetic and maybe deserves the credit for reining Joan in. The three girls in the big city – Hope Lange, Suzy Parker, and Diane Baker – are well chosen and bring energy and believability to their roles. The men, both actors and characters, fare less well, though oily Louis Jordan and an Errol Flynn-esque Brian Aherne make strong impressions.

Getting back to the Valley of the Dolls comparison: The Best of Everything is more subtle, more honest, and certainly less over-the-top, and thus has few if any of the camp qualities of Dolls. It may simply be that Everything is the genuine item, i.e. a Fifties story actually shot in the Fifties, while Dolls was a Fifties idea shot in the ultimate swinging Sixties, summer-of-love year of 1967.

In any case, times and tastes have changed but people and emotions haven’t, and The Best of Everything is a nostalgic, tasty slab of angel food cake with scoop of ice cream topping served with warm milk chaser, scrumptiously delicious in its plushy, easy to digest beauty, but even a little nourishing in spite of itself, best viewed with a hanky or two nearby.

[1] Actually I prefer the dreamy, piano dominated theme associated with the Suzy Parker character to the brought-back-one-time-too-many main title tune.

Further reading:

Jacobs, Laura. “The Lipstick Jungle.” Vanity Fair, March 2004.
Negulesco, Jean. Things I Did and Things I Think I Did. New York: Linden Press/Simon & Schuster, 1984.

Bettie Page Reveals All (2012)

Bettie Page Reveals All. Single Spark Pictures. 101 minutes. [2012]. Color and b&w. Mark Mori, director; Doug Miller, writer. With: Hugh Hefner, Dita Von Teese, Rebecca Romijn, Paula Claw, Tempest Storm. Narrated by Bettie Page.
Summary: An intimate look at one of the world's most recognized sex symbols, told in her own words for the first time. From an impoverished Southern family to scandalous '50s pin-up model, to shocking retirement in 1957 at the peak of her modeling career. With an array of gorgeous photographs, unusual archival material, and movie footage.
Bonus features: Restored Irving Klaw Wiggle movies starring Bettie; The early years of Bettie Page; Deleted scenes & bonus footage; Phone call with Bettie and Paula Klaw; Bettie's funeral video; Photo gallery of never-before-seen Bettie pics.

style ***     substance ***1/2


The documentary Bettie Page Reveals All is a loving biographical tribute to one of American pop culture’s most durable and recognizable sex symbols. What’s most remarkable about Reveals All is that it’s in a sense an authorized biography as Bettie's husky-voiced narration overlays much of the film, giving us invaluable insight into the woman in all her shadings of innocence, worldliness and intense spirituality.

Bettie disappeared from public life in 1957 more or less at the height of her modeling career, and languished in obscurity, semi-poverty and mental illness for over a quarter century. She was both thrilled and mystified at her resurgence in popularity in the 1990s. As is mentioned in the film she had a sense about when not to appear; even as she was a huge star again she became camera shy and made few public appearances, preferring her fans remember her when she was young and photogenic.
It’s difficult to think of a film star or other pop culture figure who achieved a comparable legendary status based on work created in such a short period of time. Only James Dean comes to mind, and curiously his peak years in the mid-1950s almost match Bettie’s perfectly [1].

It’s a tribute to filmmaker Mori that he treats the subject matter with dignity and respect: even with all the spicy photos that pepper the presentation there’s no sense that Mori is exploiting his subject. The controversial - for its time - content is never presented in sensationalist or lurid manner. Mori is also to be commended for giving full due Bettie’s Christian faith, which she speaks of, though never heavy-handedly. Ultimately by the film’s end we like and admire Bettie even more. Indeed it’s a measure of her mainstream respectability that one of her more unlikely admirers was the Rev. Robert Schuller, who appears in a clip from the film and conducted her memorial service.

But the more basic question is: what is there about Bettie Page that gives her such wide appeal today? It’s not that there weren’t other pinup models around in the 1950s. The answer must be her wholesome glamour and naturalness, along with a total lack of pretentiousness in the photos and the woman herself.
Another key ingredient is that Bettie was from a rural background (more or less); she grew up in Nashville, Tennessee and essentially retained a down home quality and outdoorsy athleticism all her life, and somehow this comes through in the photos. Thus so many scenes of her romping on the beach, frolicking in the water, or in the forest, or surrounded by wild animals, in sharp contrast to the illicit, urban sexuality that dominated the pin-ups and girlie magazines of the era.

Yet for all her exuberant self-expression and ostensible spontaneity, Bettie played for the camera brilliantly with the instincts of a true actress [2]. It’s just that she never seems to be posing, at least not in any self-conscious sense. And not surprisingly pin-up photographers preferred her over all other models. Adding to the mix is the sense that she’s enjoying herself. Bettie seems to be telling us that physicality in general and sexuality in particular is normal, healthy, and most of all fun, and often funny.

Even in her notorious bondage flicks there’s never any sense of real danger or physical pain, but rather always a wink and a nod, letting us know it’s all in good fun. Ironically it was these films in particular that outraged the morality police in the ever-repressed 1950s and inspired the infamous raids and subsequent congressional investigations.

It’s perhaps only fitting then that Reveals All, despite its virtues, has a certain clunkiness in execution. So be it. This might even be an unintended compliment and indirect reference to Bettie and her gloriously subversive, no-frills art. Much of the charm of her oeuvre was that Bettie’s creative universe was more seat-of-the-pants than that of the era’s other sex goddesses & pin-up queens - Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, and Ava Gardner - who had the full powers (i.e. money) of the film industry behind them.

In their very primitiveness there’s something very lean & basic about the photos – what you see is what you get, and Bettie is always a revelation, an explosion of exuberance and the full joy of life, nothing phony or over refined. She was who she was, and in this she never waivered. As one of her photographers so aptly put it: "She projected. She came right out at you." That she did.

See also: Ella Taylor, A Side of Bettie you’ve (somehow) never seen; Gaby Wood, A dominatrix laid bare. Then there’s The Notorious Bettie Page (2005), the feature film biography of which Bettie famously disapproved.

[1] The brief career - and subsequent resurgence in popularity decades later - of Fifties horror hostess Vampira might rate a strong honorable mention.

[2] With no disrespect to the main feature, the real hidden gem of the Reveals All DVD is the generous helping of bonus features. Especially noteworthy are the vintage short movies Bettie made under the supervision of producer Irving Klaw. This is Bettie at her devastating mid-1950s peak, very much in her element as she gyrates, undulates and dances her way through these rough-around-the-edges shorts. Bettie obviously loved the camera and the camera loved her back: skimpily clad in her trademark black undergarments and four-inch stiletto heels, she exudes the same charisma as in her stills, and what's more proves herself to be quite the athlete, and quite a dancer (apparently she loved dancing). Some of her movements even suggest the acrobat or gymnast. In one number she brandishes dominatrix whip. 
   We can only sigh at our loss that Bettie Page never made a feature-length motion picture. How could the film industry have missed her? Beautiful and photogenic to the nth degree, and knowing all the tricks of the trade in posing and mugging for the camera, she would for all the world have been can't-miss material for the movies. Big however - would her magic have translated to the big screen? Would her Southern accent, so charming and affable as she narrates Reveals All, have been a help, or hindrance? Alas, we'll never know the answer to these questions, since at the height of her powers she disappeared from public life for a quarter century.