Life at the Top (1965) User Reviews

Room, and then Life, at the Top

[mackjay2 · 8/10 · 9 March 2007]

Unfairly characterized as a mere sequel to ROOM AT THE TOP (1959), Ted Kotcheff's LIFE AT THE TOP is actually a strong film in its own right. It completely avoids soap opera by focusing on the complex inner lives of the character and by making keen observations on class, success, sex and love.

The story follows the life of Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey), several years after his marriage to Susan Brown (Jean Simmons, replacing Heather Sears). Life as local business mogul Brown's son-in-law and employee has not met with Joe's aspirations. His marriage to Susan has devolved to polite interchanges, his social circle is limited mostly to those who see him as a lower-class interloper, and his career is stagnated. On top of this, Joe is haunted by memories of Alice (Simone Signoret in ROOM AT THE TOP), for whose suicide he feels responsible. When temptation to stray turns up in the form of Norah (Honor Blackman), Joe resists until the inadvertent discovery of Susan's infidelity with their handsome friend Mark (Michael Craig). Tossing away what he does have with Susan and their two children, Joe attempts a new life in London with Norah, only to find he is trapped by his limitations and that he already had the best life available to him.

Laurence Harvey is at the peak of his talents in this film. He brings tremendous range and dimension to Joe, better even than in 1959. It's a pleasure to watch him so truthfully play out every moment in a film where he is almost constantly on screen. Jean Simmons impresses as well. A mature, yet still beautiful actress was needed for the role, and she fits it perfectly, displaying erotic desperation and contained sorrow. The rest of the cast is made up of top-drawer actors across the board: Donald Wolfit as Brown, doomed and enraged; Michael Craig as Mark, over-confident, yet weak at the core; Margaret Johnston, sharp-tongued and amused by Mark's womanizing; Robert Morley, Honor Blackman, Alan Cuthbertson, Ambrosine Phillpotts. All add tremendously to the film.

The direction by Kotcheff has economy and dramatic force. Richard Addinsell's score is very effective in underlining the story's emotional textures, and cinematographer Oswald Morris captures an expressively gray, British quality almost unique to films of the period.

This is an intelligent, sometimes surprisingly frank film made for adults. Very much worth preserving on any video format.

Beware of what you wish for

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 3 July 2011]

"Life at the Top" from 1965 is touted as a sequel to "Room at the Top," which it is, but you could watch this without having seen "Room" without much problem.

Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) has had his dreams fulfilled - he's married to the boss' daughter (Jean Simmons), he's working for his father-in-law in a high position, and he's managed to squash his lower-class upbringing. However, he's miserable. He's bored out of his mind and angry with his wife, who keeps getting her father to pay for things. When he meets a pretty TV correspondent (Honor Blackman) he perks up.

This is a good movie with an excellent performance by Laurence Harvey, who really picks up where he left off with Joe Lampton, angry, ambitious, resentful, and womanizing. Jean Simmons is in the Heather Sears role, and she's wonderful - beautiful, sensual, and determined to keep her husband despite her own failings. I've always thought Simmons was highly underrated as she was always in competition with Audrey Hepburn and other bigger stars of the day for roles. She is glorious in her British films that she made when she was very young, and of course, Elmer Gantry and Angel Face, to name only two.

Worth seeing, and it answers the question, will Joe Lampton ever find happiness?

Surprisingly good sequel to Claytons original

[MOscarbradley · 7/10 · 5 August 2018]

The Kitchen Sink was beginning to get a bit clogged up by the time "Life at the Top" appeared. This was the sequel to Jack Clayton's "Room at the Top" and the critical reception was a good deal cooler than it was back in 1959 which was a pity as this is a pretty good film. Joe, (Laurence Harvey, obviously, and very good indeed), hasn't really changed his ways. He's still married to the boss' daughter, (now played by a superb Jean Simmons), but he embarks on an affair with TV anchor woman Honor Blackman while wife Susan plays around with Harvey's friend Michael Craig.

There isn't a great deal that is new in Mordecai Richler's script which basically rehashes the first picture, (and Blackman is certainly no match for Signoret), but director Ted Kotcheff keeps it ticking along very nicely and Oswald Morris' cinematography is definitely a bonus. In the end it boils down to the chemistry between Harvey and Simmons and they certainly rise to the occasion. No classic then but no turkey either.

Timeline all wrong

[Ambak · 13 March 2012]

Life at the Top is not a bad film, but as a sequel there are a few problems, not least of chronology. Many people assume that Room at the Top was set in the year it was made, 1959, particularly as it has been associated with the "angry young man" genre of the late fifties/early sixties. In fact, Room at the Top is set in the early post war years, 1947 or 48. In the film we are told that Joe Lampton is 25 years old and had served in the Second World War. If the action had been taking place in 1959, Lampton would have been only five years old at the outbreak of war! The sequel is set ten years after the first film, which is confirmed by the Lampton's son (with whom Susan was pregnant at the end of Room at the Top) having his tenth birthday during the movie. This means that the sequel should be taking place circa 1958, but Joe Lampton is driving around in a 1965 Jaguar S Type and whilst in London is seen wandering around streets filled with sixties office blocks. But if the action in Room at the Top was ten years earlier than 1965, Lampton would still have been only nine years old at the outbreak of war. The other problem is Jean Simmons playing Susan. Miss Simmons is one of my favourite actresses and gives a good performance in the film, but it is quite impossible to believe that this is the same Susan Brown (as portrayed by Heather Sears) that Lampton married in the first film. People don't change that much in ten years ( I am talking about character, not appearance).

Life Needs Room At the Top ***

[edwagreen · 7/10 · 1 February 2011]

The film picks up in tempo and interest about an hour into it. Before this, it is rather dull with the late Laurence Harvey repeating his 1959 Oscar nominated role in the far better "Room at the Top."

In this virtual continuation, Harvey as Joe has made it by marrying the boss's daughter. At least, he thought so. They lead a thoroughly boring life as wife, played well by Jean Simmons, is and acts quite bored with the whole thing. Joe seems to be dominated by his father-in-law, where he works as an executive.

The picture really takes hold after Joe finds that the Simmons character has been cheating. Of course, he has been doing the same all along with Honor Blackman. The film shows the breakup of a marriage, but that Joe can't rise above anything due to his father-in-law's influence as well as Joe's lack of education and unwillingness to start at the bottom.

This is definitely a film depicting the importance of status in society. Harvey is at his best when as a newly elected town council officer, he shows his independence by voting against his Conservative party's interest. It's a phenomenal scene.

The ending of the film is quite predictable. Harvey needs Simmons and she needs him.

Classic northern grit

[Vindelander · 7/10 · 12 April 2021]

Still valid and with a great cast and storyline. Harvey shows a greater range of acting ability in this role and Simmons is excellent, as is Honor Blackman.

Edward Fox makes his first appearance in film - for about 20 seconds !!

Dont always wish for what you dream

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 8 May 2019]

Well it was more of a shotgun than a dream marriage.So in this sequel it all rather goes pear shaped for Joe Lampton.Jean Simmonds now plays the rather cynical wife.Donald Wolfit as eversteals the scenes.However in the end Joe realised he is in a prison of his own making.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

[theognis-80821 · 7/10 · 19 August 2022]

This worthy sequel to "Room At the Top" (1958) reunites a few from the old gang, Laurence Harvey, Donald Wolfitt, and Allan Cuthbertson and welcomes Honor Blackman, Nigel Davenport and Robert Morley. Heather Sears has morphed, somewhat improbably, into Jean Simmons. DP Oswald Morris conveys a sense of doom in the saga of Joe Lampton, which could be subtitled, "you may take the boy out of the proletariat, but you can't take the proletarian out of the boy." Rigid class divisions, more a feature of England than most other countries, are clearly limned here. John Braine's themes of sin, forgiveness and redemption are well-articulated.

After Simone Signoret, there is Jean Simmons, security, comfort, position, career, - and problems

[clanciai · 9/10 · 4 May 2020]

As a sequel to "Room at the Top" by the same author John Braine, it is less passionate but more intricate and psychological, as Laurence Harvey finds himself in the difficult position of being married to Jean Simmons, the daughter of a prominent businessman (Donald Wolfit) who gives him everything as his son-in-law except integrity and self-respect. He finds himself at a loss missing this most important thing in life as his wife deceives him with his best friend, and he tries in desperation to find an alternative, which he believes himself to find in Honor Blackman, a successful political TV journalist. The experiment is not very successful though, and he still considers himself stuck in the net of his father-in-law, while Jean Simmons is very different from her father. It's a complicated case which poses many problems and questions, but ultimately there seems to be some solution in the form of some compromise. The cast is excellent, every actor here is super and just right, even Robert Morley as a competitor of Donald Wolfit adds to the party, and above all this is a humanly interesting film, posing questions and problems of marriage, position, career, integríty and loyalty/disloyalty - an extra touch of excellence to the film is Richard Addinsell's music, which is needed indeed in the bleak environment of industrial Yorkshire. Jean Simmons as always lifts the film to a very interesting level, Laurence Harvey is an excellent match for her in acting, while all the others merely add details to the predicament of these two. If you have seen "Room at the Top", this will not be a disappointment to you.

A sequel that is better than the original.

[crumpytv · 7/10 · 4 February 2021]

I enjoyed this more than Room at the Top, there was more of a storyline and Laurence Harvey wasn't quite so wooden. Jean Simmonds was far stronger as Joes wife, Susan, than Heather Sears in the first film, and this gave a lot more bite to the relationship. A lot was made of the canal-side development, but this never reached a conclusion. It was just left hanging as the film concluded the other storylines.

The first film was set in 1947 and this was 10 years on, so Harry's 10th birthday would have been early 1958, but there were at least two references to be set in the 1960s. The first, in the background is the soundtrack album for Never on a Sunday, which was released in 1960. Also, Joe telling his father-in-law about his halitosis refers to a Christmas Party in '61 and by inference this was at least a couple of years previously.

Hard to like this film...

[stefanhunt-17247 · 5/10 · 5 August 2018]

I came to this film not having seen Room at the Top (1959) and not having read the novel. So my thoughts are based on it being a stand alone film - which might be a failing on my part, it is a sequel after all. I suspect this film was made (like so many sequels) on the back of the success of Room at the Top, rather than a stand alone piece of work. Anyway, my view of this film must be taken in this context.

Notwithstanding it's production in 1965 it somehow felt dated, perhaps exacerbated by being in black and white. The themes and the characters all seemed so stereotypical, outmoded and emotionally shallow. The main character played by Laurence Harvey (Joe Lampton) was very hard to like, he didn't seem to have many redeeming facets to his personality at all, often I felt I didn't really care what happened to him. There needs to be something in a main character to carry you through the story from beginning to end, not as in this case a man managing with a colossal chip on his shoulder. This wasn't the fault of Mr Harvey - more the way his character was written. This pretty much goes for all concerned. A superb cast do the best with what they have, hamstrung by what is often wooden dialogue.

My interest was only sustained by seeing the film as a document to mid-sixties England, the gorgeous Jean Simmons and glimpses of some fabulous cars - especially a Maserati Quattroporte.

The sequel to ROOM AT THE TOP carries the story forward

[robert-temple-1 · 8/10 · 5 May 2016]

Lawrence Harvey continues his portrayal of the character Joe Lampton, at a time which is meant to be ten years later. For some reason Heather Sears does not appear again as his wife, and a harsher and older Jean Simmons takes her place, which is not entirely satisfactory casting, though she does her best. Jack Clayton did not direct this sequel, instead it was directed by Ted Kotcheff. He also is very good, but not as brilliant as Clayton. The other characters continue to be played by the same actors, although of course Simone Signoret does not appear, because her character is dead. In her place, to fill the carnal void left by Jean Simmons in Harvey's life appears a femme fatale played excellently by Honor Blackman. The Honor Blackman character is very subtly conceived and written, and she is the type who challenges a man to leave his wife and start a new life with her, and then when he unexpectedly does so (as Harvey does), she dumps him, leaving him high and dry and desolate. Prior to this experience, Harvey has discovered that life at the top is not at all the bed of roses he had imagined in his dreams. 'Marrying a million' does not mean he has a million, and even his car is a company car and he is not even a joint owner of his own house, and in fact he is a prisoner in a gilded cage. As his father in law, played as waspishly as ever by Donald Wolfit, says: 'I bought him for my daughter.' This film is excellent, and if it is not quite on the same level as its illustrious predecessor film, it is still a worthy sequel well worth seeing.

A fair sequel to a great original

[regertz · 7/10 · 14 August 2022]

"Room at the Top", the story of a desperate to succeed working class Brit who's hoping his new civil service job in a town far superior to his depressed, bombed out home town was a brilliant mediation on what one may lose on the way to achieving what one may think one wants, with Lawrence Harvey terrific as Joe Lampton and Simone Signoret heartbreaking as his mistress Alice whom he realizes too late is the true love of his life. This one "Life at the Top" showing Joe in his new "Don Draper" life married to boss' daughter is entertaining and has some life in Jean Simmons' portrayal of an older, wiser, but still loving Susan, far less innocent and far more interesting than Heather Sears' version of the character in the first film. And Honor Blackman as the ambitious but loving journalist with whom Joe seeks to change a life that's become a trap and constant humiliation for him. However the movie lacks some of the spark of the first and while Joe remains an engaging character who is not simply a worthless cad trying to climb up...He did love Susan in film 1 till he realized he'd created an illusion about her and his grief for Alice is real; and he does care for and comes to respect and admire the stronger Susan in this one, one can't help feeling he should either admit his deficiencies to himself (He does lack training, experience, etc) or break out and prove himself, gaining his wife's respect in the process. His tame acceptance of Alice's widower's gross insults to her memory do lessen one's respect for him. But all-in-all not a bad sequel to the first.

Little-known sequel

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 12 August 2018]

LIFE AT THE TOP is a little-known sequel to the 1959 classic ROOM AT THE TOP, the film that helped usher in the 'angry young man' sub-genre of film. It's bolstered by another towering performance from Laurence Harvey, who seethes with working-class resentment despite having 'made it' in his world. The story this time around is slightly more inferior and less dramatic than that of the first film's, too much bogged down with domestic strife involving Jean Simmonds. The good news is that there's an excellent ensemble cast bringing the material to life, particularly Honor Blackman as yet another vivacious character for her resume.

Pretty Jean Simmons in a terrifying film

[mrdonleone · 7/10 · 1 September 2022]

By Allah, this movie depressed me. Not many people are like a brain this movie because they all have their flaws and of course that is like real life still at remains and moving you want to be entertained where is the entertainment offered in this film flick are not really the kind you want to write home to your parents about and because of this once again the movie ends up to be pretty boring especially if you haven't read your original book on which this movie by the way even is a sequel on so you wonder what it is all about and then when you watch the movie you cannot help but feeling disappointed in the depressing life choices some of the characters are making. Personally I did not dislike the acting performances and by Allah Jean Simmons is always a wonderful marvel to look it. Mashallah!!

Pretty boring

[HotToastyRag · 3/10 · 4 August 2017]

After watching Life at the Top, it's pretty clear Jean Simmons wanted to play Maggie the Cat in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She plays the wife of hunky Laurence Harvey, but try as she does, she can't get him into bed. In one scene, she rubs lotion on her topless self to try and entice him—but don't worry, the camera captures that scene from the mirror, so there's no nudity.

Life at the Top is the sequel to Room at the Top, but if you haven't seen the 1959 film, you won't really be lost. In 1959, Laurence Harvey slept and connived his way to the top, and six years later, we see what his life is like after he's achieved what he thought he wanted. He has a strained relationship with his son, a bad marriage, and hardly any respect in the community. While there are a couple of good scenes where Larry and Jean spar off each other and show off their acting chops, most of the movie is incredibly boring. The majority of the film focuses on his aspirations at work, but I can't think of anyone who would be watching it for that part of the plot. Overall, it's a very overdone genre, and this film is neither imaginative nor entertaining.

life at the top

[mossgrymk · 8/10 · 16 September 2022]

Not bad, sequel wise. If it's a long way from "Godfather, Part Two" it is an even farther distance from "Godfather, Part Three". The first half is definitely the lesser part. Canadian director Ted Kotcheff and scenarist, Mordechai Richler (the "Duddy Kravitz" team) examine British snobbery, adultery, and Tory politics amusingly and with a lively pace but do not really give us anything that the 1958 film did not present in much more dramatic fashion. And while the entire cast gives solid performances, as expected from Brit actors, there is no character in the sequel as compelling as Simone Signoret was in the original playing a literal and figurative outsider who must be sacrificed on the altar of Joe Lampton's desire for wealth and status.

However, in the second half a most interesting change occurs. Joe decides to leave his wife and cushy, if humiliating, job in the provinces and journey to London to be with a woman he's convinced will rejuvenate him. The opposite happens as she rises in her profession while he is stuck in occupational limbo and suddenly Joe is faced, as are most of us sometime in our existences, with the question, How will I live my life? I, for one, found that Kotcheff and Richler posed this question interestingly and answered it most intelligently (if heavy handedly, at times, as in the ending where Joe is literally "locked in" to his job). And since interest and intelligence are in short supply in the cinema I'm glad I didn't pull the plug on this movie halfway through. Give it a B.

PS...Is it just me or did Jean Simmons get hotter with age?