Nothing But the Best

[Rowdon]

I have a great poster for this 1964 Alan Bates film enhancing my flat, and thought I should see the film. However, it doesn't seem easy to find. Am I just not looking hard enough?

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[crunchie]

I have this one.

[Merton Park]

It is a very amusing film, well worth watching. Excellent cast and a real black comedy. One of my favourites.

[CALF28]

I think this was out on DVD a while back, can't remember who by though. Good film with Denholm Elliot playing a superb cad. The path to oblivion is paved with Jumbo Burgers!

[Hugo]

Nothing But the Best was based on a short story by Stanley Ellin. The original story was also dramatised very effectively in the Tales of the Unexpected series (disc 7 of the box set) under the title The Best of Everything, with Jeremy Clyde as the cad and Michael Kitchen as the hero.

[agutterfan]

I have a great poster for this 1964 Alan Bates film enhancing my flat, and thought I should see the film. However, it doesn't seem easy to find. Am I just not looking hard enough?

As a fan of Mr Bates I saw this on TV years ago. Brilliant black comedy with Bates, Denholm Elliott, and Millicent Martin all in cracking form. Imagine Room at the Top made by the early 60s satirists (e.g. TW3, on which Ms Martin appeared). I believe it is now an orphan work. Perhaps the BFI will release. Apart from that, try this site at your own risk (I haven't used them myself): Nothing But The Best (1963) - Buy this film on DVD

[Rowdon]

Just got this through the kindness of strangers, here on this thread. I will report back: agutterfan's review makes it sound brilliant.

[Rowdon]

(As posted on "Watched Last Night" - just bumping the thread, really ...)

What a great, great film. Beautiful London with beautiful cars and populated by beautifully dressed beautiful people. Very hip without at any moment being dated (except in a good way), searingly sarcastic satire, laugh-out-loud throwaway lines and Denholm Elliott at his best. His best, really - and we all know how good that must be. I will happily watch a decent film with Alan Bates or Millicent Martin; no problem at all, but I will gleefully watch any film at all with Denholm Elliott because what you get is always so much more than he needs to give; it's always so enjoyable.

It's a vicious satire on ambition and definitely a film to come to without too much knowledge of the plot, if possible. That would have been very difficult for Italian audiences, though, if they saw the astonishingly misleading poster (below).

  Spoiler:

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[Merton Park]

To Rowdon

Agree with every word, it is a timeless classic, a brilliant black comedy.

I first saw it, when it first came out, as a young trainee doing a bit of what Alan Bates was supposed to be doing at work in the film and of course I was mesmerised. It is one of my all time favourite films and strikes me as a bit of a forgotten classic. All the characters are excellent, Harry Andrews, Millicent Martin, James Villiers and of course Alan Bates and Denholm Elliot were wonderful plus Pauline Delaney as the landlady in a very well played part. Frederic Raphael wrote a terrific script with real laugh out loud moments, he also wrote another of my favourites Two for the Road.

Brings a big smile to my face just thinking about it.