Despite his intelligence, creativity and ambition, Joe’s working-class background is a barrier to his upward mobility and always will be. Even if he pretends to be one of the ruling class who sit in the rooms at the top of the town, he isn’t, and will never be, one of them. Room at the Top is now available on Studiocanal Vintage Classics Blu-ray, DVD and Digital.
Directed by Jack Clayton (The Innocents) and based on John Braine’s novel, Room at the Top explored key themes of class, ambition, and social standing in post-war Britain. However, it also provided an early exploration of working-class anger, hypermasculinity and the restrictions of a class structure that had changed little since Victorian times.
Set in a world where position, postcode and education mark your card from childhood, we follow Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) as he navigates his way through the constraints of his working-class background in pursuit of success and standing. Here, the tension between social mobility, hyper-masculinity and class is laid bare as Joe moves to the fictional town of Warley as a first step on the social ladder he believes will lead him to the town’s affluent upper echelons.
As Joe starts his new job as a local council officer, he eyes two potential women from different social backgrounds: the sophisticated and rich Susan Brown (Heather Sears) and the down-to-earth and honest Alice Aisgill (Simone Signoret). Susan holds the keys to the upper-class life and social standing Joe seeks. At the same time, Alice embodies the working-class ethos of resilience and authenticity that he holds dear but seeks to deny as he attempts to climb the slippery ladder to success.
Like Lindsay Anderson’s If…. (1968), Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), and John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar (1963), Room at the Top’s critique of class and conflict is assured; however, Clayton’s drama also includes some groundbreaking conversations on masculinity, class, and identity, and it’s these themes that truly make Room at the Top tick when explored through a contemporary lens; after all, this is a country even more divided by wealth, position and social status than it was in 1958, even if we like to pretend we have moved on. Private school kids still dominate our parliamentary system, career options are still divided by the background of a parent or guardian, prison places are still primarily reserved for the working classes, and male anger has only grown, flourishing through dangerous “influencers” such as Andrew Tate, who spoke directly to the disenfranchised young male via social media.
Despite his intelligence, creativity and ambition, Joe’s working-class background is a barrier to his upward mobility and always will be. Even if he pretends to be one of the ruling class who sit in the rooms at the top of the town, he isn’t, and will never be, one of them.
Produced by the Woolf brothers, Room at the Top would help spark the British New Wave and give birth to a far more gritty social realism in 1960s cinema, while its lead, Laurence Harvey, would himself battle with expected masculine behaviours as he enjoyed a secret relationship with James Woolf, adding layers of complexity to his outstanding performance. Clayton’s 1958 drama uncomfortably explores a series of issues that continue to haunt our modern world: the interplay between class, education, politics, opportunity, and the toxic behaviours associated with dangerous hypermasculinity.
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