A powerful performance by Laurence Harvey highlights this drama about a young man determined to be successful. Joe Lampton leaves the lower class industrial town of his youth with his sights set on achieving success on his own terms. His thin veneer of braggadocio hides layers of insecurity about his class and blue-collar pedigree.He determination to wed a naïve girl (Heather Sears)from money is sidetracked by his relationship with an older woman (Simone Signoret). Will his cold calculations determine his future or will he learn that life is about more than status and money?The strength of Harvey's portrayal borders on scenery chewing, but it is eminently watchable. Fortunately, Sears and Signoret are strong enough to balance his flamboyance, with the aid of Donald Wolfit who plays the father of the would-be bride with an understated power.Filmed in black and white, "Room at the Top" deserves its six Oscar nominations (and two wins). How much viewers enjoy it depends heavily upon their appreciation for Harvey's character, Joe Lampton.

Oh how I enjoyed this film, that's what it was, a film, not just a movie. I can't believe it took me so long to watch, silly me had it on my DVR since March/05/2012 and never felt like watching it. I just finished it now.The acting from the leads was superb! I loved Alice and Joe. The acting from so many of the actors was top-notch, only the character Susan was a bit of a drag. How I hate that Joe would be stuck with her whiny and silly self. He did realize that what he thought he wanted wasn't what he wanted at all, and look how he messed everything up. Poor dear Alice! I was hoping all would end well, but I knew it would not. I just knew it. Joe is going to be wealthy and have a life that his friends would never have, but he truly learned that his love for Alice meant more than anything to him. Can you imagine having to listen to Susan for years to come?

Laurence Harvey delivers a knock-out performance as Joe, the status climbing guy, who will do just about anything to achieve his goal.This story reminds me somewhat of A Place in the Sun, where a young man is torn among lust, social climbing and ultimate tragedy.Harvey was never better in any film, even the 1962 "Manchurian Candidate." He is desperate for love, recognition in a place of upper society. While he achieves this in the end, we know how really unhappy he is.Simone Signoret, as Alice, 10 years older than Harvey in the movie, but filled with lust received the Oscar here for 1959's best actress. I believe that she got it because Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn canceled each other out in "Suddenly, Last Summer" and Audrey Hepburn was terribly overlooked for "The Nun's Story." (5th nominee Doris Day was out of her category in "Pillow Talk," nominated because the academy had overlooked her brilliant performance four years before in "Love Me or Leave Me.")Signoret was difficult to understand in several scenes and was far better as the Oscar nominated Contessa in the 1965 memorable "Ship of Fools."The film's endearing theme is that moving to the top does not always buy you happiness.Hermione Baddeley received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress as a dear friend of Signoret. She torn into the screen in her brief 3 scene appearances, but etched an unforgettable performance.Heather Sears shines here as the spoiled, rich girl who is looking for love. Her parents are the epitome of upper-class snobbishness in society.

Room At The Top filmed in 1959 takes place some ten years earlier in post war Great Britain as veteran Laurence Harvey takes it in his mind to rise from his lower class origins by any means possible. He's a devilishly attractive fellow and if that's what it takes to do it, than so be it. Not like it hasn't been done before on either side of the pond.Harvey's got no family so to speak, his parents were killed in his small town when a German bomb hit their house. He's rootless now and has a crying need to belong somewhere.The similarities in character to novelist John Braine's Joe Lampton and Theodore Dreiser's George Eastman are too obvious to overlook. However unlike Eastman, Lampton as played by Harvey is courting two very different kinds of women. Boss Donald Wolfit's daughter Heather Sears is a young and somewhat inexperienced young lady who's easy prey for Harvey. Wolfit and his wife Ambrosine Phillpotts see what's happening with their daughter, but can't ultimately do anything.But while they're trying Harvey falls in with the unhappily married Simone Signoret. She's married to Allan Cuthbertson who's a cheating dog himself. She's got a lot of passion left in her and even though Harvey's ten years younger, she knows how to show him one real good time. Being French she has a different moral view of things than the folks of her adopted country and she thinks Harvey does as well. He does, but Harvey has his priorities.Room At The Top was something that still couldn't be made in America because of the Code, but at least it was shown here. What Makes Sammy Run, a work by Budd Schulberg never had a big screen adaption and it had similar themes to Room At The Top, Still it got great critical acclaim and two Academy Awards and other nominations.Simone Signoret got one of those Oscars, for Best Actress in 1959. It's a very subtle part she undertakes, in fact she's not the main character, Harvey is. Still when she's on the screen even Harvey's flashier character of Joe Lampton takes a back seat. Signoret is just fabulous as the older and still attractive woman, trapped in a loveless marriage will touch you dearly. She's one of the most beautiful and tragic figures ever done on screen.Harvey was up for Best Actor, but he and the film itself were running in the year of Ben-Hur. He and the picture itself lost to Charlton Heston and the noble character he created on screen. Hermione Baddely who had a role similar to Thelma Ritter's in All About Eve was up for Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to Shelley Winters for The Diary Of Anne Frank.Room At The Top with its brutally frank talk of sex mixed with ambition has become a classic and Joe Lampton became Laurence Harvey's signature role. Two sequels with Joe Lampton, Life At The Top and Man At the Top, were spawned from the original, the latter with Lampton played by Kenneth Haigh as Harvey had died by then. It's an enduring classic of the British, nay the English language cinema and should not be missed.