bbrebozo I watched most of this movie, but couldn't quite make it all the way through. Not that it was a bad movie. The script was well constructed, the shots were interesting and directed well, and there were some stellar performances by Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, and Hermione Baddeley.But the weak link was Laurence Harvey, who seemed to glide through the movie in some kind of hypnotic trance. Here, let me demonstrate: Watch the first five minutes or so of the film, where Laurence Harvey arrives in town and begins staring at all the beautiful women. What is he doing? Is he ogling them? Lusting after them? Merely looking at them? Or is he secretly trying to destroy them with his X-ray vision? He puts little effort into showing us what he's thinking. He's just a guy staring oddly at women.The rest of the film is the same way. It ultimately made no sense to me that so many beautiful women were enamored with him, or why Heather Sears was so taken with him, or why Sears's boyfriend hated him so. Maybe it was because he was a good looking guy, but what in his personality inspired so much passion? Having watched almost all of this film, I had no idea, and toward the end didn't care. Through the script, it was made clear that he was a poor boy trying to sleep his way into the upper classes, but he came across like a rich boy just trying to sleep with a lot of women.If you're a Simone Signoret fan, there are some golden moments in this film. Otherwise, you may want to opt for another movie selection.

tomsview I've always thought of "Room at the Top" as an important movie.Although the story seems anchored to life in Britain at the end of WW2, and driven by the class struggle and sense of delusion after the war, the major themes are universal.Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) in his attempt to rise above an impoverished background by latching onto a girl from a wealthy family has many cinematic soul brothers – Montgomery Clift in "A place in the Sun" and "The Heiress" for starters.In Joe's case, he sacrifices the woman he really loves, for comfort, security and position. Needless to say, he comes to regret that decision and therein lays the soul of this movie.It's easy to see why Simone Signoret won the Academy Award as Alice Aisgil, the older woman he loves. She is at once worldly, but vulnerable; it is painful to watch her as she realises the fragility of her relationship with Joe.Then there is Laurence Harvey. His was a difficult role, and although he may be a little too strident earlier in the movie, by the end, he inhabits Joe Lampton like a second skin.Laurence Harvey gave a certain gravitas to many movies, although his critics would seem to deny him any stature as an actor at all – I often wonder if they mixed up his off-screen life with his on-screen roles? Apparently he was promiscuous, bi-sexual, perennially late on set, and used people to gain advantage – not unlike Joe Lampton – but all that was off camera, it's not the Laurence Harvey 99.9% of us ever saw.When British actor Robert Stephens described Harvey in his autobiography as "an appalling man and, even more unforgivably, an appalling actor." It's hard to take that as a particularly astute observation when we watch not only this film, but also "Darling", "Butterfield Eight", "The Manchurian Candidate" and even "The Alamo", where Laurence Harvey's cultivated Colonel Travis is the perfect counterpoint to the testosterone charged performances of just about everyone else in the cast. But maybe those smooth good looks and that superb voice just got up the nose of less photogenic peers – there seems much peevishness in their comments.There is considerable depth to his performance in "Room at the Top", especially at the end when the anguish over what he has done breaks through his icy demeanour; it's understated and all the more powerful for it. Made in 1959, but set in the late 40's, the film looks good, and has that sense of timelessness often achieved by films made at a later date than when they are set.The sequel, "Life at the Top," made in 1965, was a polished production that had something to say about the politics of the time, and also featured a more mature performance by Laurence Harvey. However, it didn't have the immediacy of the original, which ushered in that brilliant period in British cinema in the late 50's and early 60's. History aside, "Room at the Top" is a powerful experience full of fascinating and attractive stars.

drednm This film hasn't lost any of its bitter bite since it debuted in 1959. Laurence Harvey plays an ambitious young man who leaves a squalid industrial town somewhere in England for a good job in a nicer city. He immediately makes friends in the office and joins an amateur theater group when he learns that a pretty rich girl (Heather Sears) is a member. He also meets an older French woman (Simone Signoret) who is also a member.He starts an affair with the older woman while he blatantly pursues the rich girl, much to the dismay of her parents. Her father is a coarse but self-made man; the mother is a snooty society woman. The girl has a sort of boyfriend who constantly uses his wealthy upbringing and schooling to put Harvey "in his place." Even in post-World War II England, the "class system" is very evident. Harvey's attempts at being upwardly mobile are constantly shot down.The girl is sent to France in an attempt to get her away from Harvey, and he falls into a torrid affair with Signoret. But he cannot get the girl (and her money) out of his head. Months go by before he runs into the girl and renews his pursuit. Of course she gets pregnant and the family relents, rushing her into marriage, an act that has bitter and surprising consequences for all involved.Signoret won the best-actress Oscar (and just about every acting award that year) for her work here and she is magnificent. She is worldly and sad yet is not about to accept her fate. Harvey (Oscar nominated) gives his best performance as the blatant social climber. His "angry young man" is at once despicable and sympathetic. Sears scores as the naïve young woman who tries to balance her life and her parents' wishes.Hermione Baddeley (also Oscar nominated) has a great scene toward the end of the film. She plays Signoret's friend, the one who enables their affair by lending them her apartment. Donald Wolfit is excellent as the girl's father. Ambrosine Phillpotts is good as the mother. Donald Houston, Raymond Huntley, Wilfrid Lawson, Beatrice Varley, and April Olrich are all good in smaller roles.

bkoganbing Room At The Top filmed in 1959 takes place some ten years earlier in post war Great Britain as veteran Laurence Harvey takes it in his mind to rise from his lower class origins by any means possible. He's a devilishly attractive fellow and if that's what it takes to do it, than so be it. Not like it hasn't been done before on either side of the pond.Harvey's got no family so to speak, his parents were killed in his small town when a German bomb hit their house. He's rootless now and has a crying need to belong somewhere.The similarities in character to novelist John Braine's Joe Lampton and Theodore Dreiser's George Eastman are too obvious to overlook. However unlike Eastman, Lampton as played by Harvey is courting two very different kinds of women. Boss Donald Wolfit's daughter Heather Sears is a young and somewhat inexperienced young lady who's easy prey for Harvey. Wolfit and his wife Ambrosine Phillpotts see what's happening with their daughter, but can't ultimately do anything.But while they're trying Harvey falls in with the unhappily married Simone Signoret. She's married to Allan Cuthbertson who's a cheating dog himself. She's got a lot of passion left in her and even though Harvey's ten years younger, she knows how to show him one real good time. Being French she has a different moral view of things than the folks of her adopted country and she thinks Harvey does as well. He does, but Harvey has his priorities.Room At The Top was something that still couldn't be made in America because of the Code, but at least it was shown here. What Makes Sammy Run, a work by Budd Schulberg never had a big screen adaption and it had similar themes to Room At The Top, Still it got great critical acclaim and two Academy Awards and other nominations.Simone Signoret got one of those Oscars, for Best Actress in 1959. It's a very subtle part she undertakes, in fact she's not the main character, Harvey is. Still when she's on the screen even Harvey's flashier character of Joe Lampton takes a back seat. Signoret is just fabulous as the older and still attractive woman, trapped in a loveless marriage will touch you dearly. She's one of the most beautiful and tragic figures ever done on screen.Harvey was up for Best Actor, but he and the film itself were running in the year of Ben-Hur. He and the picture itself lost to Charlton Heston and the noble character he created on screen. Hermione Baddely who had a role similar to Thelma Ritter's in All About Eve was up for Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to Shelley Winters for The Diary Of Anne Frank.Room At The Top with its brutally frank talk of sex mixed with ambition has become a classic and Joe Lampton became Laurence Harvey's signature role. Two sequels with Joe Lampton, Life At The Top and Man At the Top, were spawned from the original, the latter with Lampton played by Kenneth Haigh as Harvey had died by then. It's an enduring classic of the British, nay the English language cinema and should not be missed.