Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    Nostalgia Central
    • Home
    • Blog
      • Lists
    • Television
      • TV by Decade
        • TV – 1950s
        • TV – 1960s
        • TV – 1970s
        • TV – 1980s
        • TV – 1990s
      • Comedy
      • Drama
      • Kids TV
      • Variety
      • News & Sport
      • Advertisements
    • Music
      • Music by Decade
        • Music – 1950s
        • Music – 1960s
        • Music – 1970s
        • Music – 1980s
        • Music – 1990s
      • Artists – A to K
        • Artists – A
        • Artists – B
        • Artists – C
        • Artists – D
        • Artists – E
        • Artists – F
        • Artists – G
        • Artists – H
        • Artists – I
        • Artists – J
        • Artists – K
      • Artists – L to Z
        • Artists – L
        • Artists – M
        • Artists – N
        • Artists – O
        • Artists – P
        • Artists – Q
        • Artists – R
        • Artists – S
        • Artists – T
        • Artists – U
        • Artists – V
        • Artists – W
        • Artists – X
        • Artists – Y
        • Artists – Z
      • Artists – 0 to 9
      • Genres
      • Music on Film & TV
      • One-Hit Wonders
      • Playlists
      • Online Radio
    • Movies
      • Movies by Decade
        • Movies – 1950s
        • Movies – 1960s
        • Movies – 1970s
        • Movies – 1980s
        • Movies – 1990s
      • Movies – 0 to 9
      • Movies – A to K
        • Movies – A
        • Movies – B
        • Movies – C
        • Movies – D
        • Movies – E
        • Movies – F
        • Movies – G
        • Movies – H
        • Movies – I
        • Movies – J
        • Movies – K
      • Movies – L to Z
        • Movies – L
        • Movies – M
        • Movies – N
        • Movies – O
        • Movies – P
        • Movies – Q
        • Movies – R
        • Movies – S
        • Movies – T
        • Movies – U
        • Movies – V
        • Movies – W
        • Movies – X
        • Movies – Y
        • Movies – Z
    • Pop Culture
      • Fads
      • Toys & Games
      • Fashion
      • Decor
      • Food & Drink
      • People
      • Technology
      • Transport
    • Social History
      • 1950s Year by Year
      • 1960s Year by Year
      • 1970s Year by Year
      • 1980s Year by Year
      • 1990s Year by Year
      • Events
    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1950s
    Movies - 1950s Movies - R 3 Mins Read

    Room At The Top (1959)

    Share
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email

    Room at the Top was adapted from John Braine’s first novel, about an ambitious young man in a local government office in a large and bleak northern town who makes a set for a wealthy industrialist’s daughter, and – when thwarted – turns to an older married woman.

    Eventually, he is forced into marriage with the girl, the older woman meeting her death after a drinking orgy.

    The character of Joe Lampton is ambivalent, bitter, his social animus perhaps deriving from a slum childhood and a war spent mostly in a prison camp, but driven forward by a kind of confident, day-dreaming quality, a refusal to admit the impossible.

    His eventual translation from the cobblestones of the lower end of the town to the Tudor gables at the top is meant to show his sublimation of life’s values to ambition.

    He has destroyed one life and knowingly goes into a loveless marriage accompanied by the material comforts for which he has always hankered. It is, in his terms, not a bad jail sentence.

    In retrospect, Braine’s book is hardly as startling as it may have seemed at the time. The stance is a traditional, stolid one of disapproval.

    roomatthetop_wendycraig

    In the film, the tight-lipped and rather frigid performance of Laurence Harvey does not explain the character’s motivation. Donald Wolfit, as the industrialist, delivers an impressively theatrical portrait of a nineteenth-century mill-owner, although the performance hardly fits this particular film.

    Simone Signoret, as the older woman, is not too happily cast, either, volatile Gallic temperament not mixing well with Yorkshire reticence.

    But the critics’ admiration was mainly on account of the love scenes between Harvey and Heather Sears; at last someone in a British film actually admitted that the sex act was enjoyable and for the first time such dialogue was passed by the British Board of Film Censors.

    What seemed startling in 1959 had later become banal, but Room at the Top was at least a turning point in this sense.

    Joe Lampton
    Laurence Harvey
    Alice Aisgill

    Simone Signoret
    Susan Brown

    Heather Sears
    Charles Soames

    Donald Houston
    Mr Brown

    Donald Wolfit
    Elspeth

    Hermione Baddeley
    George Aisgill

    Allan Cuthbertson
    Mr Hoylake

    Raymond Huntley
    Jack Wales
    John Westbrook
    Mrs Brown
    Ambrosine Phillpotts
    Teddy Merrick
    Richard Pasco
    Eva Kent
    Delena Kidd
    Cyril Kent
    Ian Hendry
    Mavis
    April Olrich
    June Samson
    Mary Peach
    Bernard
    Anthony Newlands
    Miss Gilchrist
    Avril Elgar
    Miss Breith
    Thelma Ruby
    Bert
    Derren Nesbitt
    Meg
    Prunella Scales
    Mary
    Katharine Page
    Janet
    Anne Leon
    Joan
    Wendy Craig
    Gertrude
    Miriam Karlin
    Reggie
    Kenneth Waller
    Raymond
    Andrew Irvine
    Darnley
    Stephen Jack
    Miss Tanfield
    May Hallatt
    Ethel’s mother
    Sheila Raynor
    Ethel
    Gilda Emmanueli
    Mrs Thomson
    Jane Eccles
    Harry
    Dennis Linford
    Grant
    Michael Atkinson
    Uncle Nat
    Wilfred Lawson

    Director
    Jack Clayton

    Video


    Related Posts

    • Lusty Men, The (1952)
      Lusty Men, The (1952)
      This touching, realistic drama stars Robert Mitchum as Jeff McCloud - a former rodeo champ forced to retire through injury…
    • Show Boat (1951)
      Show Boat (1951)
      The Cotton Blossom, owned by the Hawks family, is a renowned showboat in the American deep south. Julie Laverne (Ava…
    • Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1959)
      Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1959)
      Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson solve the mystery surrounding the death of a baronet on bleak, forbidding Dartmoor and save…
    • I Married a Woman (1958)
      I Married a Woman (1958)
      Marshall "Mickey" Briggs (George Gobel) of the Sutton Advertising Agency, is hard-pressed to come up with an idea to follow…
    • Defiant Ones, The (1958)
      Defiant Ones, The (1958)
      A self-avowed "message" picture, Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones deploys a potent symbol of American race relations: two convicts, one white and…
    • Red Rock West (1992)
      Red Rock West (1992)
      A hapless drifter (Nicolas Cage, this time in a non-comic variation on his innocent dupe persona) turns up in a…
    • Juvenile Jungle (1958)
      Juvenile Jungle (1958)
      Teenage thugs Monte (Joe Di Reda) and Tic-Tac (Richard Bakalyan) lead their gang of beach bum punks through a series…
    • Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959)
      Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959)
      Roo (Ernest Borgnine) is a burly, bombastic man with a domineering manner. Barney (John Mills) is a wiry little Don…

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleRoman Holiday (1953)
    Next Article Rose, The (1979)

    Comments are closed.

    Follow us
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
    • Instagram
    You May Also Like
    • Nanny
      1 9 8 1 – 1 9 8 3 (UK) 30 x 50 minute episodes Nanny, […]
    • Wicker Man, The (1973)
      Edward Woodward plays Sergeant Howie, sent to the remote island […]
    • SPK
      Hailing from Australia and having been formed in 1978 by New […]
    • Spring and Autumn
      1 9 7 2 – 1 9 7 6 (UK) 26 x 30 minute episodes This comedy […]
    • Ginger (1971)
      Leggy blonde private investigator Ginger McAllister (Cheri […]
    • Mr Belvedere
      1 9 8 5 – 1 9 9 0 (USA) 117 x 30 minute episodes Sports […]
    Twitter Feed
    Please note


    Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today.
    Popular Tags
    1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1975 1976 Action Figures Amicus Arcade games Australia Beach movies Beatles Blaxploitation Board games Britpop Canada Crime Disco Disney Doo-Wop Elvis Presley Girl groups Glam Goth Hammer Heavy Metal Irwin Allen Labels Merseybeat Mod revival Motown New Romantic New Wave NWOBHM Oi! One-hit wonders Power Pop Pub rock Punk Radio Scotland Ska Soul music Surf music
    Search Nostalgia Central
    Copyright © 1998, 2022 Nostalgia Central
    • About
    • Contact
    • FAQ

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.