The film opens with our protagonist Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) arriving in the fictional town of Warnley after escaping Dufton his hometown. He’s secured a position in the Borough Treasurer’s department and wants to make his fortune. As he arrives at the department he catches the eye of several women in the office who stare at him as he announces his presence. Joe is clearly a lady’s man, and it is through this character-trait that he will try to create a better life for himself. Joe is motivated by a desire to be better than those in more privileged positions, his home life seems to be the instigator for his actions, he thinks little of his home town, and at several points maligns Dufton, describing the canals as sewers, and pointing out that “people don’t visit the town, they just pass through.” His parents were killed by a German bomb which destroyed his family home, Joe muses that it was the only bomb to be dropped on Dufton and it was probably a mistake as there was nothing worth bombing in the town. On his first day at his new job, Joe sets his eyes on Susan Brown (Heather Sears) the daughter of Mr. Brown, a wealthy businessman, his colleague immediately deters him saying that she’s not for him and that he shouldn’t waste his time. Joe’s ambitions are considered untenable, when he says he’ll have a room at ‘the top’ (the fashionable district for rich people) his friend laughs it off as an impossibility. But the doubters do not deter Joe in his relentless pursuit of Susan who Joe views as his ticket to all the wealth that the Brown family have. He has a huge chip on his shoulder about his class ‘I never owned a car but I learnt to drive in the RAF’ he defends himself when someone asks him if he can drive. Later he talks about the upper class: ‘They think they can have anything worth having by divine right’ He’s jealous of those of higher social standing, but ironically Joe never considers that he is acting like he to has a ‘divine right’ to ‘anything worth having’. Joe eventually succeeds in wooing Susan despite her family’s best efforts to deter him, they threaten that he’ll never get a promotion, when blackmail doesn’t work they try buying him off by getting him a job offer for an important position back in Dufton purposefully set-up to get rid of him, when this fails they send Susan away to the South of France so that he can’t get near her but this only encourages him ‘They’re scared of me!’ he happily proclaims. Mr and Mrs. Browns tactics all fail, Joe is playing the long game, the only thing that will get in Joe’s way is his relationship with Alice (Simone Signoret), a former exchange teacher from France who Joe begins an affair with when Susan is sent away. With two women on the go at the same time Joe’s plans are threatened when he falls in love with Alice and realises that he doesn’t love Susan.
Beyond its deconstruction of the class system Room at the Top arguably works first and foremost as a simple morality tale about the pitfalls of greed. Joe faces a choice: either be with the woman he loves but be destitute; or be rich beyond his wildest dreams but with a woman he doesn’t love. Ultimately Joe can have what he wanted, he’s in reach of his ultimate goal, but at what cost? Whatever decision he makes he will end up doing permanent damage to one of the two women, the situation he finds himself in is entirely his doing, he’s not a victim of the class system, he’s a victim of his own ambition, or perhaps his ruthless nature is a direct product of the class system he’s trapped within, the only way for Joe to be truly successful is to be as ruthless as he can (but then perhaps that’s true of all business.) But all the class-system deficiencies fall by the wayside in the films gut wrenching final reel as the conflicts come to a head. The climax of the film is all the more effective for the central performances, Laurence Harvey shows a considerable range within his performance as Joe, going from self-serving to realising that he could lose something truly important to him, it’s the moments where Joe is caught off guard that really show off Harvey’s prowess as an actor, a stunning moment when Joe pronounces a word incorrectly and is laughed at by a room full of on-lookers, his face shifts from amusement of his mistake to embarrassment when he realises he’s being laughed at, to anger when the laughter doesn’t stop. Elsewhere Hermione Baddeley won the Academy Award for her performance as Alice’s room mate Elspeth (the performance with the least amount of screen time to win that particular award, she only appears for two minutes and thirty-two seconds) and other supporting players are equally accomplished. However the real plaudits must go to Simone Signoret whose performance as Alice managed to make Oscar history as the first winner of the Best Actress category for a performance in a non-American film. Signoret creates a truly memorable victim, the look on her face when she realises her husband is going on a business trip just to have an affair with his secretary is simply unforgettable and she imbues the film with many such moments, her humanity shines through the celluloid and as a consequence forces the audience to root for Joe to make the right decision and stay with her. Room at the Top might be about an ‘Angry Young Man’ but it wouldn’t be worth watching without this victimised middle-aged woman.
M.Dawson |
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“New Wave” is a term that has been applied to many a national cinematic output at one time or another. The first and most famous of which is undoubtly The French New Wave when the likes of Jean-Luc Goddard began their experiments in cinema rebelling against established norms and inventing the concept of autuerism. Love them or hate them, one has to accept that the French New Wave changed the face of cinema in many respects. Coming some time after France’s cinematic revolution was The British New Wave which held a lot of common ground with the literary and theatre movement known as the “Angry Young Men” and is sometimes referred to as such. The British New Wave is characterised by social alienation and disillusionment with the then current social structure, directors like Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger, Lindsay Anderson and Ken Loach forged names for themselves in this brand of cinema with films like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner (1962), Billy Liar (1963), This Sporting Life (1963), and Kes (1969) respectively. “It’s grim up North” as the saying goes and these largely working-class centered dramas were often set in Northern England, they explored the deficiencies and inequities of British social systems and central to their philosophy was that the working class should be seen on the big screen, thus using cinema as a tool for social commentary and not just as a form of entertainment. This Sporting Life is a particularly good example of the British New Wave; Richard Harris (in a tour de force performance) plays more of a bull than a human being in the story of a Rugby player who gets out of the mines and onto the pro-game pitch, only to let the chip on his shoulder destroy whatever chance he’s got of making it big. This Sporting Life has been referenced quite frequently in recent years; it perhaps has the ‘angriest’ of all the young men at its heart. The British New Wave was a great vehicle for performances as well, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning gave a young Albert Finney his finest role and lines of dialogue so durable you can chew on them: “Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not because they don’t know a bloody thing about me!” This seemingly speaking for an entire generation of down trodden working class men, the rest of country doesn’t know anything about them. Less well known than any of the aforementioned films and also coming slightly before all of them in 1959, is Jack Clayton’s Room at the Top. If the other significant entries in the British New Wave seem to be male-centric then this was surely an example where the female characters held their own. 
Room at the Top is a film that works on a number of levels: it is a dissection of the inequities of the British class system and although it is set just after World War II it did still have relevance in the late 50’s, the class system may have weakened over most of the 1940’s and 50’s but it was still ingrained in British society (and arguably still is today). Class is a major factor in everyone’s lives, one of Joe’s rivals for Susan’s affections is a former officer of the RAF, the officers were privileged members of the military and usually of wealthier backgrounds, class system prejudices extend to the military and then back into society, Joe snubs him at one point: ‘Different brands of courage, didn’t you know?’ It seems somewhat alien in today’s world that Susan’s parents would disapprove of Joe without ever meeting him and that his suitability is entirely based on his upbringing and background without ever considering whether or not he actually loves Susan. They don’t even suspect him of being a gold-digger (which is actually Joe’s major crime); they rule him out for all the wrong reasons. Joe’s friends and immediate work colleagues all accept their position in society without question and think that Joe’s single minded pursuit of Susan is a utterly folly. But Joe has something to prove to the world, he wants to prove that he can have anything that an upper class man can have, the inequities he’s suffered by virtue of his place of birth have corrupted him and eroded his soul. He will do anything to better himself even seducing a young girl who he has no real feelings for. But the film presents Joe as a unique case, when he goes to visit his Aunt and Uncle they ask about Susan and all he can talk about is how rich her family is, his aunt calls him on this and pleads with him not to sell his soul for a few pieces of silver, although her pleas fall on deaf ears the scene does demonstrate that not everyone from the working classes is as amoral as Joe.
The film is considered by many to be the beginning of The British New Wave, it pushed boundaries in terms of acceptable content (this was the first British film to use the word ‘sex’) and even with cuts made to its content it was given an x certificate at the time of release, ordinarily such a rating would condemn the film to box office failure as exhibitors would refuse screen it. But one cinema chain, ABC, took a risk and released the film, their gamble paid off as the film went on to be a success with audiences and critics alike, it eventually went on to win Best British Film and Best Film From any Source at the BAFTA’s and would be nominated for Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards. However, since the productions initial success Room at the Top has been sadly overshadowed by many of the aforementioned films that came later in the British New Wave. This is surprising as over fifty-years on the film has stood the test of time well and even by today’s standards it is a merciless morality-tale with a universal message about the dangers of greed.
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