BOOTLEG FILES 345: “Room at the Top” (1959 British classic starring Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret).
LAST SEEN: It is now on YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: It was available on a number of public domain labels.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: After years of unauthorized presentations, the film is currently not available on U.S. DVD.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It will return some day.
Back in 1959, the British film industry was a fairly dreary place. Yes, some raffish diversion existed: the Hammer horror films breathed new life into old monster favorites, while the saucy “Carry On” comedies took arched-eyebrow innuendo to new depths. But outside of occasional prestige costume epics, there was very little to recommend from this corner of Europe’s film industry. Then along came “Room at the Top” and everything changed for the better.
“Room at the Top” was a film adaptation of John Braine’s taboo-breaking 1957 novel, which frankly dissected Britain’s ossified socio-economic class system while exploring sexual relations with a maturity that was unusual for the literature of the era. The commercial viability of the material initially seemed limited, considering that the British film industry’s censors would enable a wide release of a non-bowdlerized production. Nonetheless, director Jack Clayton pushed ahead with a production that stayed mostly faithful to its source material.
“Room at the Top” takes places in a small Yorkshire city a few years after World War II. Joe Lampton, the handsome young product of a poor factory town, arrives for a new job as an accountant at the municipal treasury. Joe’s background (which is immediately apparent from his thick dialect and seemingly limited conversational skills) seems to peg him for a perpetual slot in the lower-middle-class level of the city’s social environment. Yet Joe has a fairly unusual strategy for his future: he plans to leapfrog the socio-economic ladder by marrying into a wealthy family.
To achieve this goal, Joe sets his eye on Susan, the daughter of a local industrial magnate. He gets involved in an amateur dramatic company where she is part of the acting company, and he tries a little too hard to turn on the charm. Susan enjoys his attention, but she is the only one that appreciates Joe’s efforts. Her wealthy father is appalled at this lower class interloper, while Susan’s posh quasi-boyfriend repeatedly insults Joe by referring to him as “Sergeant” – Joe was a non-commissioned officer in the war while Susan’s boyfriend was a captain and decorated war hero. Even Joe’s office manager warns him to stay away from Susan.
Simultaneous to this, Joe unexpectedly finds his genuine soul mate in another member of the amateur dramatic company: Alice, an older woman and the unhappy wife of a local solicitor. Joe and Alice begin an affair that evolves into deep love. But their happiness is short-lived: Alice’s husband discovers the relationship and refuses to give her a divorce, while Joe learns that his initial pursuit of Susan paid off with her unexpected pregnancy. A grief-stricken Alice takes her life in an automobile accident while Joe faces a bitter future with his crudely achieved goal – marriage to Susan.
A great deal of the emotional strength of “Room at the Top” comes from its two central characters, and the offbeat casting for the film resulted in parallel strokes of genius. To play Joe, director Clayton cast against type by bringing in Laurence Harvey. The Lithuanian-born, South African-raised actor had been in films for a number of years, but his leading man roles were mostly bland and forgettable. (His most notable work was “Romeo and Juliet” in 1954 and “I am a Camera” in 1955 – and that’s not saying much!) With “Room at the Top,” Harvey had the difficult task of creating the part of a charismatic yet utterly selfish heel that goes through an emotional obstacle course. Harvey brilliantly captured the full depth of character’s evolving personality, and his Joe is one of the most startling anti-heroes to turn up on screen.
For the role of the doomed Alice, Vivien Leigh was originally pursued. But when the two-time Oscar winner rejected the part, an unlikely replacement was recruited: French actress Simone Signoret. Unlike the neurotic persona that Leigh projected in films, Signoret projected an earthy confidence that made Alice’s vulnerability all the more tragic and moving. Signoret did not bring a grandly dramatic level of performing to the role, but instead imbued her part with an intelligence and dignity that made the film’s tragic ending all the more shattering.
Not surprisingly, the British censors were uncomfortable with “Room at the Top” and gave it an “X” certificate that restricted its exhibition to audiences 16 and older. The Rank Organisation, the nation’s leading exhibitor chain, refused to show the film. However, Rank’s rival ABC recognized the commercial potential of the film. With a salacious poster that showed a shirtless Harvey lying atop a wistful Signoret (with both actors beneath text that promised a “savage story of lust and ambition”), “Room at the Top” became a box office sensation. The resulting film literally shocked British audiences and helped to realign the British film industry into its own “new wave” that saw the emergence of bold new talents and a willingness to address previously off-limits topics.
Across the Atlantic, the art house distributor Continental Distributing picked up the rights to “Room at the Top.” While neither Harvey nor Signoret were box office attractions in the U.S. market, the distributor opted to put the film into a heavily publicized wide release. The film was a monster hit with American audiences – even if the Yorkshire accents were a bit thick and the class structure plotline was a bit too British for trans-Atlantic appreciation, the raw emotions of the story and the powerful performances resonated with Americans.
“Room at the Top” was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Director. It also snagged an eccentric honor in the Best Supporting Actress category: Hermione Baddeley, who played as Alice’s best friend and confidante, was only on screen for a total of two minutes and 20 seconds, making her work the briefest performance to ever receive an Oscar nomination. (And, yes, she deserved the nomination – her work is unexpectedly powerful, despite the minimal screen time.) In the end, the film won Oscars for its adapted screenplay and for Signoret’s performance – the first for a performance by an actress in a non-Hollywood film.
“Room at the Top” was an unusual peak for its main talent. Clayton’s directing career strangely ebbed in the years that followed, while Harvey enjoyed a brief flurry of Hollywood stardom in the early 1960s before his career abruptly tanked; he revived the Joe Lampton character for the 1965 sequel “Life at the Top,” but the film flopped. Signoret, despite her Oscar gold, mostly concentrated her career in European films (in too much forgettable work, truth be told).
For many years, “Room at the Top” was a staple of U.S. public domain video labels – a fairly unusual feat, since the film was not in the public domain. It has been out of circulation in the U.S. home entertainment market for years, although Asian and European DVDs can easily be found. The full film can also be seen on YouTube, albeit in a 12-part installment.
More than a half-century after its premiere, “Room at the Top” remains a highly satisfying and beautifully conceived study of the human experience. It is one of the most important films in the history of British cinema and, mercifully, it is still one of the most remarkable dramatic productions of all time. If you’ve never seen “Room at the Top,” seek it out with all due speed – it is a great film, and one the very best featured in The Bootleg Files series.
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