If there's one thing this film does well, its capturing the appeal and allure of New York City. This is a fun time-capsule of a film from this period and it beautifully captures some truly iconic images of midtown Manhattan, and a couple other shots of the city. The beautifully stylized representation of office life, the cloths and apartments of NYC explains why these girls along with millions of others like them dreamed of coming to New York City to achieve their dreams - be it a dream job as a successful executive or a rich husband. As for the story itself, it is a bit cliched and is filled with some stereotypes. Despite some issues I think this film is great fun and worth checking out.

Yes, after getting off to a rather poor start, this film grows on you. Or at least it grew on me. The beginning, setting the stage, seemed so very cliché, but as the film progresses we see that most of the characters have a fairly interesting story to tell us.The real treasure here is Hope Lange, whom I remember enjoying in movies and on television quite a bit before she faded in my memory. She's excellent here, an probably the highlight of the film. As the main character, she matures in her character's role from naive secretary to executive...and makes it believable.On the other hand, Stephen Boyd, whom she eventually appears to fall in love with, does little more than stand around in a few scenes. And in those few scenes he was pretty ineffectual. Surprisingly, he was stunning in his very next film -- "Ben-Hur"! I also wan't very impressed with Suzy Parker as a secretary. Her role is significant, but somehow she just didn't have star quality...other than her looks.I would like to have seen more of Martha Hyer, a very underrated actress. Her part is not that significant here.Diane Baker was quite good as another of the secretaries, and significant parts of the film revolve around her affair and later romance.Brian Aherne is around as an older editor who can't keep his hands off the young secretaries. He's okay, but I was not impressed.Louis Jourdan is here as a Broadway director, and although his role is not large, it is significant, and he handles it well.And then we have Joan Crawford. Her present-day image as a witch (or something that rhymes with that)...well, this role helped cement that image. But, her role is my biggest criticism of the film. Almost seems like they sat around saying, "Hey, we need a witch to counteract with a couple of the characters. Maybe we could get that over-the-hill actress Joan Crawford." It almost becomes camp. This was Crawford's last film before she fell into horror pictures.The acting runs from hot to cold in this film (as described above), and Crawford is little more than a distraction. But there's a lot to like here, as well. It really does have quite a good story line, however, and as previously mentioned, Hope Lange is superb.

This 1959 soap opera film takes us into the lives and loves of three young women in the publishing world as secretaries. This follows the same idea as THREE COINS IN A FOUNTAIN a few years before. This takes place in New York while COINS takes place in Rome, Italy. Our three beauties are Hope Lange, in her first starring role, Suzy Parker and Diane Baker. Lange does well and holds her own opposite some strong veterans in the business, namely Joan Crawford. Suzy plays an obsessive woman who has a hard time losing her beau. Hard to believe that anyone could reject this beauty for any reason, but Louis Jourdan, her heart throb, does just this. Sort of takes you back to Paul Neuman rejecting the gorgeous Elizabth Taylor in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, doesn't it? Diane Baker, the third damsel in distress, meets and dates Robert Evans, before he became the producer, and husband to Ali MacGraw, he is known for. Hope's boyfriend from home, played by newcomer Brett Halsey, is promising to marry her. She also meets Stephen Boyd, a fellow worker, who has interests in our Hope. All three ladies have their drama ahead of them. Crawford almost steals the film. Her presence and her usual strong bitchy self is fun to watch. Veteran actor Brian Aherne plays one of the bosses with a yen for pinching our leading ladies' back side. He's delightfully charming. Also in the cast is Martha Hyer, wasted in a thankless role never really explored. Too bad as I like this actress who never seems to get that one role to distinguish her abilities. She has a crush on a married man in the office played by Donald Harron, whom I had the pleasure to work with in a couple of Shakespeare plays in NYC. He is a distinguished actor that is wasted in this film also.All in all it's great fun, in Technicolor and cinemascope, directed by Jean Negulesco.

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.