caroline bender ( hope lange ) be just kill time get a job . her real ambition be to marry eddie and have a baby . april ( diane baker ) be too innocent to stay that way for long and fall in love too easily and a dangerous combo . greg ( suzy parker ) be a go getter and want to be an actress . all three be doom for dramatics in the best of everything and a 1959 soap opera or morality play or sometimes solid movie that be age by the second . set in the cut throat world of paperback publishing and it not as trashy a valley of the doll but not as vanilla a three coin in the fountain . the men in the mix brian aherne and stephen boyd and louis jourdan and robert evans be slick and well dress and no good and for the most part . aherne be the resident sexual offender will pinch anything walking by and and make unwanted advance right and leave . his character be offensive a hell and but it not play seriously at all . harassment hadn not be discover yet and i guess . boyd work there and too and although you never see him actually do anything . he too busy be old and wiser and drunker . evans be abroad just so diane baker can suffer in style he a rich kid who get her in trouble so instead of marry her and a promise and he take her to get an operation . jourdan be a director who mistakenly have an affair with parker . they share a fight scene which be fairly no hold bar and in a movie like this anyway and but the scene be ultimately ruin by parker histronics . she end up nearly stalk him and and she really do not deserve such a lousy fate and her bad acting notwithstanding . joan crawford breathe fire a amanda farrow and the resident witch who be automatically rude and dismissive of any of her legion of secretary . well they be young and aren not they . isn not that sufficient reason to hate a person . caroline doesn not think so and a she admirably stand up to miss farrow every chance she get . crawford only get to let loose once and when she tell her married boyfriend you can your rabbit face wife can both go to hell and slam down the phone . you never get to see the poor soul who dare cross her . martha hyer toryline and a it be and be extremely weak and and she be painfully over the top a an unmarried mother . short of wear a huge w ( for whore ) on her cardigan and she walk around like a pathetic mess for most of her screen time . even bad and she be not give the courtesy of have it all tie up and one way or the other and at the end . it would not matter that much and but still . it painfully obvious this all take place in a totally different world . people be nicer to one another for the most part and work be not a drag but something exciting and for a girl from outside nyc anyway . one unconvincing drunk scene aside and hope lange help it seem reasonably real a caroline and who at least have more than one side to her character . i admire that woman be see have an opinion and a chance and a choice . not that it not wrap in a nice bow and but it make some point for equality . in 1959 that be probably noteworthy and possibly controversial . positive .