Room at the Top ***** (1959, Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit) – Classic Movie Review 1,483

Jack Clayton’s influential 1959 double Oscar-winning film Room at the Top is a Fifties British classic in its own right and significant as the first of the British New Wave of realistic film dramas. Laurence Harvey is a perfect fit for Joe Lampton.

Director Jack Clayton’s influential 1959 double Oscar-winning film Room at the Top is an all-time great Fifties British classic in its own right and significant as the first of the British New Wave of realistic film dramas.

Its star Laurence Harvey may have had a relatively slim talent but he is just right in the film that he will always be remembered for. Nevertheless, it is Best Actress Oscar-winning Simone Signoret who easily steals the show in her scenes as his spurned lover Alice Aisgill.

Harvey is a perfect fit for Joe Lampton, the ambitious, weak and amoral Northern English young accountant/ clerk determined to succeed in business, who sacrifices the married older woman (Simone Signoret) he loves in his social-climbing scheme to marry nonentity Susan Brown (Heather Sears), the insipid daughter of a boorish wealthy factory owner/ businessman (Donald Wolfit).

In its day, it was a British cinema landmark for its frank discussion of sex, zeitgeist-capturing portrait of disillusion and disaffection, and its in-depth depiction of working class life. As influential in the cinema as Look Back in Anger was in changing the face of British theatre, it led the way to the series of British kitchen sink realist films like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Kind of Loving, A Taste of Honey, Live Now – Pay Later and This Sporting Life.

It is another one of those British films of the period with a great cast, which includes Ambrosine Phillpotts, Donald Houston, Raymond Huntley, John Westbrook, Allan Cuthbertson, Richard Pasco, Ian Hendry, Mary Peach, Miriam Karlin, Wilfrid Lawson and Hermione Baddeley.

As well as Signoret, screen-writer Neil Paterson also won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his adaptation of John Braine’s 1957 bestseller, which he said was based on Guy de Maupassant’s Bel Ami, filmed in 1947 as The Private Affairs of Bel Ami. De Maupassant was Braine’s favourite author.

There were four other Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director for Clayton and Best Actor for Harvey and Best Supporting Actress (Hermione Baddeley). Baddeley’s performance is the shortest ever to be nominated for an acting Oscar, with just two minutes and 20 seconds of screen time. There were three Bafta awards, for Best Film, Best British Film and Best Actress (Signoret). Signoret also won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival.

It was filmed at Shepperton Studios, with extensive location work in Halifax, Yorkshire, standing in for the fictional towns of Warnley and Dufton, with some scenes shot in Bradford.

Sequels: Life at the Top in 1965 with Laurence Harvey and Man at the Top. in 1973 with Kenneth Haigh.

The cast

The cast are Simone Signoret as Alice Aisgill, Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton, Heather Sears as Susan Brown, Donald Wolfit as Mr Brown, Donald Houston as Charlie Soames, Hermione Baddeley as Elspeth, Allan Cuthbertson as George Aisgill, Raymond Huntley as Mr Hoylake, John Westbrook as Jack Wales, Ambrosine Phillpotts as Mrs Brown, Richard Pasco as Teddy Merrick, Beatrice Varley as Joe’s aunt, Delena Kidd as Eva, Ian Hendry as Cyril, April Olrich as Mavis, Mary Peach as June Samson, Anthony Newlands as Bernard, Avril Elgar as Miss Gilchrist, Thelma Ruby as Miss Breith, Paul Whitsun-Jones as Laughing Man at Bar, Derren Nesbitt as Thug in Fight on Tow Path, Derek Benfield as Man in Bar, Richard Caldicot as Taxi Driver, Wendy Craig as Joan, Basil Dignam as Priest, Everley Gregg as Mayoress, Jack Hedley as Architect, Miriam Karlin as Gertrude, Wilfrid Lawson as Joe’s Uncle Nat, Prunella Scales as Council Office Worker, Julian Somers as St Clair, and John Welsh as Mayor.

Simone Signoret

French actress Simone Signoret (born Simone Henriette Charlotte Kaminker; 25 March 1921 – 30 September 1985) won an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, a César Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,483

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