Room at the Top

Joe Lampton takes a council job in a town in the north of England, comes from the working class and is determined to rise. He moves on the daughter of a factory owner while carrying on a real relationship with Alice, an unhappily married Frenchwoman, and is eventually forced to choose. Jack Clayton's film is treated as a turning point in British cinema, since class, sex and ambition had not been stated this openly before, and it opened the way for the British new wave. Simone Signoret won the best actress Oscar as Alice, with Laurence Harvey as Joe. The man who wins at the end has lost everything, and the film says so plainly. Who it is for: viewers who like British class drama and late fifties cinema. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a sympathetic protagonist, since Joe is calculating throughout.