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ROOM AT THE TOP

Network DVD / Released 26 January 2009

Featuring Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears

Directed by Jack Clayton and based on the sucessful novel by John Braine, the magnificent Room at the Top ushered in a whole new era of kitchen sink, tell it like is British cinema. Laurence Harvey, playing against his usual suave type, is working class Yorkshire man Joe Lampton who is determined to make the well to do Susan (Heather Sears) his girl, at the same time he is drawn into an affair with an older French woman, the unhappily married Alice (Simone Signoret). Things come to a head when Alice's husband learns of her affair and Susan discovers she is pregnant with Joe's child.

Never before had we seen class and sexuality like this on the British screen, a real eye opener at a time when Britain, and the world, was looking to expand the way it looked at things, no doubt that is one of the reasons why RATP was such a huge sucess (replicated world wide with even a couple of oscars into the bargain), apart from that the film is incredibly strong, still stands up as a major piece of work today. An examination of class at a time when the average Brit was struggling to break free of it, teenagers were having more of a say and Beatlemania was only a few short years away.

Interestingly, although it isn't made plain, the film is supposed to be set in the late 1940's (as is the book), Lampton is supposed to have been a POW during world war two and given that he is 25 there is absolutely no way he could have been if the movie was set in the time it was made, actually adds to the impact really.

If you have any interest at all in the changing face of British cinema then this is one of the key films you will have on your viewing list, it's also a fantastic slice of film making that never outstays its welcome.

Extras include an audio commentary and booklet from historian Neil Sunyard; a photo gallery and a pdf look at director Jack Clayton's press clippings scrapbook.

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