Life at the Top *** (1965, Laurence Harvey, Jean Simmons, Honor Blackman) – Classic Movie Review 7433

Director Ted Kotcheff’s modest but diverting enough 1965 drama Life at the Top is the soap-opera-style sequel to Room at the Top (1959) that, even while it entertains, misses the quality and bitter taste of the original, adapted by Mordecai Richler from John Braine’s follow-up novel.

Laurence Harvey is back in his most famous and probably best role as creepy, grasping Joe Lampton now reaping the bitter harvest of marrying for money a decade after the original film ends. His marriage (Jean Simmons taking over from Heather Sears as Lampton’s wife Susan) is on the rocks, and she finds comfort with his pal Mark (Michael Craig) while Harvey does the same with a media type, TV presenter Norah (Honor Blackman).

Shot by Oswald Morris in black and white, Life at the Top is all very professionally done, often entertaining and well acted. Harvey is riveting again, Donald Wolfit as Harvey’s father-in-law Mr Brown, Ambrosine Phillpotts as Mrs Brown, and Margaret Johnston as Sybil are amusing, and Simmons and Blackman are fine, but we miss Simone Signoret, whose character dies in the original.

Also in the cast are Robert Morley, Nigel Davenport, Allan Cuthbertson, Paul A Martin, Frances Cosslett, Ian Shand, Andrew Laurence, George A Cooper, Geoffrey Bayldon, Denis Quilley (in his first feature film), Paul Whitsun-Jones, Charles Lamb, Richard Leech and Harry Fowler.

Braine complained about the casting of Laurence Harvey, saying that the Joe Lampton he had written about was ‘a red-blooded Yorkshireman, not a Lithuanian bisexual’. So, homophobic and racist then. And grumpy too –  he was annoyed that Heather Sears did not return as Susan.

Shooting took place in the Bradford Wool Exchange (which became Waterstone’s), Ilkley station before the closure of the Skipton-Ilkley line, at what became the Hollins Hall Marriott Hotel and Country Club (the location for Brown’s house) and at what the Oakwood Hall Hotel near Bingley, West Yorkshire.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7433

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