ROOM AT THE TOP (1959)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton

SCREENWRITER: Neil Paterson

FILM STARS: Simone Signoret, Laurence Harvey, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston, Hermione Baddeley

COUNTRY: Great Britain

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: John Brain

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Penguin

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1960

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1957

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: A great novel by English novelist John Braine. Braine is one of the “angry young men” group of English writers from the late 50s. who emerged on the literary scene in the late 1950s. Those novels were a mix of disillusionment, cynicism or observation on working class life, lower middle class with characters trying to punch their ways out of their surrounds, looking for a (or for “some”) “room at the top”. The English trend seemed to replicate the matter of fact or cynical, disillusionment novels of the early to mid-5os in the US (the “slice of life” and “the rat race” novels and plays by Sloan Wilson,  Paddy Chayefsky and others). Both trends on either side of the Atlantic also created similar trends in film (and in television in the US). The main difference is that the British novels and films were observant of the rigid, and more obvious, English class structures. “Room at the Top” was followed by a sequel in both novel and film, “Life at the Top”, and a TV series “Man at the Top” in 1970.

This film stars one of my favourite English actors, Laurence Harvey or Zvi Mosheh Skikne as I like to call him. A Lithuanian-born Jew who grew up in South Africa and who had to punch (or sleep?) his way to the top. The film is one of the best English “kitchen sink drama” 9realist) films of the late 50s / early 60s.  The story is now, and perhaps was even then, familiar but by film standards of the time it is frank in its attitude to sex and its acknowledgement of regional culture is refreshing. It was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic (it was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning two … not bad for a small English film), and it made a big star out of Laurence Harvey.

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