Room at the Top - Reviews

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Room at the Top is somewhat tame by current standards, but in 1959 it caused the British Board of Film Censors to loosen their standards and allow the film's unusually frank dialogue. The British public was unaccustomed to films in which characters might admit that they enjoyed sex, and, as such, Room at the Top represented a breakthrough, even though it's a minor part of the film. Newfound frankness notwithstanding, the story is conventionally moralistic in its disapproval of its protagonist, who opts for the comfort of money over the ideals of love, honor, and compassion.


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The release of Room at the Top in 1959 inaugurated a cycle of realist films that came to be known as the British New Wave. These films, which featured what for the time were unusually frank treatments of sexual mores, were seen by many critics as introducing a new maturity into British cinema. Clearly Room at the Top fitted this pattern in its focus on a materialistic working-class male seeking the good life in a Northern town.

However the film was more polished than later examples of the British New Wave, reflecting Clayton's experience of working on more conventional studio fare throughout the 1950s, and it had a more moralistic conclusion, in which the hero realises the terrible emotional price that he has had to pay for his material success.

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AWARDS

British Academy Awards for Best Film, Best British Film, and Best Foreign Actress (Signoret), 1958; Cannes Film Festival, Best Actress (Signoret), 1959; Oscars for Best Actress (Signoret) and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, 1959.