ROOM AT THE TOP: Blu-ray (Romulus/British Lion, 1959) Kino Lorber

Jack Clayton marked his debut as a director of some merit with Room at the Top (1959) – a scathing indictment of England’s caste system and the greedy opportunist who believes he not only can challenge, but rise above its snob prudery – and does...to his ever-lasting detriment. Rather faithfully based on John Braine’s novel, Room at the Top was Oscar-nominated for six golden statuettes, including Best Picture, and winning for Best Adapted Screenplay (Neil Paterson) and Simone Signoret’s tragic turn as the unhappily married, who sells herself short in a volatile affair with the aforementioned social-climbing prig. In roles originally slated for Stewart Granger, Jean Simmons, and, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Harvey, Heather Sears and Signoret respectively reveal an uncanny vulnerability, owing – perhaps partly – to their relatively unknown stature with American public then. Harvey, an actor for whom I have never been able to work up a lather, is typecast as Joe Lampton; the insatiably-driven young buck, newly arrived in the town of Warnley to work in government service – a step up from the coal-blackening decay of his home town of Dufton. Joe wants it all, desires it fast, and, is not particularly concerned who he has to step on to get to where he is going. To this end, he quickly latches onto Susan Brown (Sears) whose father (Donald Wolfit) is an executive with his fingers in a lot of local pies. Sue’s mother (Ambrosine Phillpotts) is gravely concerned her daughter is aiming for a future through rose-colored glasses. And indeed, Sue’s naiveté – a byproduct of being to the manor born – overlooks Joe’s loveless pursuit to get her into bed, then wed – to satisfy his ego and longing for the finer things in life, but also, to win a bet made at the home office with coworker, Charlie Soames (Donald Houston), himself, desperately in love with the secretary they share, June Samson (Mary Peach).

Sue’s current beau, Jack Wales (John Westbrook) proves a minor fly in the ointment, chronically to goad the temperamental Joe into succumbing to his own inbred inferiority complex. The difficulty here is not that Joe does not believe he can beat any man at his own game of deception. It’s that Joe realizes too well the English caste system is stacked against him. The wealthy marry their own kind, leaving the Joe Lamptons of the world to pick from ‘desirables’ in their own social strata. One such notable among these offerings is Alice Aisgill (Signoret) – a retired French school teacher, presently toiling in the local ‘player’s’ club, where she first meets Joe.  Alas, Alice is a married woman. Her husband, George (Allan Cuthbertson) is the fairly distance sort, determined to hang on to his wife, regardless of whether or not they still love one another. Alice and Joe begin their illicit affair casually enough, over drinks and a few laughs. Before long, the two are sharing weekend getaways to the country. They also frequent the apartment of Alice’s best friend, Elspeth (Hermione Baddeley) for clandestine flagrante delictos. It’s all very good until the end, except Joe cannot shake the promise of ‘better things’ with Susan from his wicked little mind. Although he prefers Alice, Joe pursues Sue through a series of false starts – snubbing her parents and Jack, repeatedly showing off, though mostly his shortcomings, and finally, having his way with this awkward 'green' girl inside a boat house one afternoon when no one is looking.

Afterward, Sue revels in her sexual awakening, endlessly nattering on about how she suddenly feels more like a woman. Meanwhile, Joe – rather idiotically - becomes insanely jealous, especially after learning the middle-aged Alice once posed nude for an artist during her college years.  The thought of other men being able to appreciate her naked form before him leaves Joe with a dreadfully narrow-minded case of resentment that momentarily creates a rift in their affair du Coeur. At its bleakest point, Joe and Alice reconcile, despite George revealing to Joe that he knows all about his wife’s extramarital activities. Even though George has been messing around with his secretary for quite some time, he now exercises a husband’s prerogative to put his foot down where his wife’s philandering is concerned. Not only will George not grant Alice a divorce, but he threatens to destroy Joe’s reputation, should Joe continue to carry on with his wife. Rather than acting as a deterrent, George’s forewarning only antes up Joe’s desire to be with Alice. Unfortunately for all concerned, Sue’s father summons Joe to a private luncheon at which point he tries – without success – to buy off this brazen buck with the promise of setting him up in business.  Rebuked, Mr. Brown now reveals the truer purpose behind this invitation. It seems Sue has become pregnant from her afternoon indiscretion with Joe. To spare her good name – as well as the family’s - Joe will wed Sue in a lavish ceremony; Mr. Brown, promising his son-in-law an immediate leg up in the family business.

So, Joe gets exactly what he has been after all along…or does he?  Trapped into this marriage of convenience, Joe returns to Alice to inform her they can no longer carry on as before. He lays all of his cards on the table, leaving Alice’s invitation to a private supper and the present of a sweater bought for him, a truly moot point. Their affair cannot go on. Joe confides he always knew it would end this way – what, with George’s stalemate staring them down, and the prospect he is just low enough to wreck both their reputations in an instant out of spite and for pure revenge. While there is some hint of a suggestion Joe’s marriage to Sue will be made under duress, it nevertheless fulfills all of Joe’s original dreams to become a man of means. Haunted in all her disillusionment, Alice retreats to the local pub, gets quietly soused, then drives her car over the edge of a nearby cliff. News of her terrible death reaches Joe’s office the next afternoon, just as everyone has gathered to toast his pending nuptials to Susan. In short order, Susan and Joe are wed in style. However, throughout the ceremony, Joe cannot shake Alice’s memory loose from either his heart or mind. As the newlyweds retreat into their chauffeur-driven limousine, even as well-wishers looks on, Joe begins to shed tears. But are they for Alice, Susan, or merely of the crocodile ilk for his present predicament – trapped in a loveless marriage and destined to forever know that the woman who ought to have been his, he instead drove to suicide?

In 1959, nothing like Room at the Top had ever been seen on the screen before; partly, its reason for six Oscar nominations. Today, the picture still packs a wallop, although some of its acting has not dated well in the interim. Lawrence Harvey is just awkward. It is much easier to believe in his performance at the outset, as the callous womanizer and cheat, rating lovers on a sliding numeric scale, than to buy into his Joe Lampton as a man torn between duty to one gal, and, hard-extinguished embers for another he must do wrong to in order to do right by the first. Hermione Baddeley, who appears on the screen for exactly 2 minutes and 19 seconds, created such an indelible impression as the ever-loyal best friend, her nod for Best Supporting Actress still stands as the briefest performance ever to be so Oscar-nominated. Curious that Simone Signoret should have walked off with the only acting award. Her Alice, while soberingly adult, though never contrite about the foibles in her own life’s work, is competently played, but can hardly be classified in the same caliber as Kate Hepburn’s mighty powerhouse as the mad dowager in Suddenly, Last Summer, or Audrey Hepburn’s restrained, but towering achievement as the ingenue of The Nun’s Story.

Lawrence Harvey’s rather wooden performance notwithstanding, Room at the Top remains a top-flight entertainment, an engrossing tale about a rake’s progress getting the better of him. In adapting the novel for the screen, Neil Patterson made only the slightest revisions. In the novel, Charlie Soames is also from Dufton; hence, he understands implicitly from whence Joe’s motivations for a ‘better life’ commeth. In the movie, Soames is merely amused by Joe’s proclivity to distill love into a mechanical pursuit for riches. Furthermore, in the movie, Soames and Lampton are paired together by their boss, Mr. Hoylake (Raymond Huntley), eager to see the new young man in his employ make a success of his government service. The town of Warnley was originally ‘Warley’ in the novel, and ‘the room’ Lampton rents from a never-to-be-seen Mrs. Thompson, is procured by him, not Charles, as in the film. Incidentally, the room itself played a far more important part in the novel – hence, its title – than it does in the movie; in the book, the concrete manifestation – at least for Joe – marking the first real step to his ‘betterment’ and a distinct step up from his own modest beginnings. Room at the Top is oft cited as the first of Britain’s ‘new wave’ kitchen sink dramas. Most of it was filmed on soundstages at Shepperton Studios, with locations lensed in and around Halifax, Yorkshire, and, Bradford. Nearly 5 years would elapse before a sequel – 1965’s Life at the Top (also based on Braine’s novel) emerged. But by then, notable cast changes as well as a change of venue – to Columbia Studios – ensured mostly, that the follow-up did not live up to audiences’ expectations.

Room at the Top arrives state’s side from Kino Lorber, sporting the same ‘restored’ 2K elements, lovingly preserved by the BFI and released to hi-def Blu-ray two years earlier in the U.K. only. Image quality between these two releases is virtually indistinguishable. Kino’s release has a higher bit rate, but the BFI is region B-locked. Both releases sport an exemplary B&W image with some utterly gorgeous tonality, excellent contrast, and grain looking very indigenous to its source. Occasionally, the elements can appear just a tad soft. However, this is likely inherent in Freddie Francis’ original cinematography. Age-related artifacts are practically non-existent. Minor image flicker, and one example of a horizontal thin white line running down the left side of the screen for a brief moment is about all the damage visible. So, kudos to the BFI for curating this classic. Curiously, Kino’s audio mastering suffers from a shortcoming not inherent on the BFI – Kino’s, irregularly becoming quite strident, almost grating on the acoustic nerve.  It is difficult not to favor the BFI over the Kino for these reasons, and also, most notably, for the extras. While Kino’s sports another rather ineffective audio commentary by Kat Ellinger (who cites Pauline Kael and Neil Sinyard as her primary sources for this effort), the BFI disc is loaded with goodies.

For starters, the BFI included two separate, and infinitely superior audio commentaries, the first by Jo Botting; the other, by Neil Sinyard. The BFI effort also included Jack Gold’s The Visit (1959), an absolutely gripping half hour about a single working-class woman. BFI also padded out their extras with brief featurettes and Ken Annakin's We of the West Riding (1945) – at 22-minutes, another harsh docu-drama about everyday life after the WWII, and, 1969's This Town, about everyday Yorkshire life on the cusp of its own seismic cultural shift. In addition, there were trailers and an image gallery on the BFI disc, plus a detailed booklet, co-authored by John Oliver, Kieron McCormack, Michael Brooke and Vic Pratt. All of this is lost to North American audiences, begging the question as to why BFI wouldn’t be more interested, either in licensing these extras or in working out the necessary ‘rights issues’ to market their product themselves on this side of the pond. Bottom line: Room at the Top is a blistering, darkly purposed and revealing masterpiece. It holds up remarkably well under today’s scrutiny and is not to be missed in either incarnation. If you have a region-free player, the BFI is wisely preferred. For those who do not, the Kino will have to suffice. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

Kino 1

BFI  5