Room at the Top (1959 film)

Room at the Top is a 1959 British film based on the novel of the same name by John Braine. The novel was adapted by Neil Paterson with uncredited work by Mordecai Richler. It was directed by Jack Clayton and produced by John and James Woolf. The film stars Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston and Hermione Baddeley.

In late 1940s Yorkshire, England, Joe Lampton Laurence Harvey, an ambitious young man who has just moved from the dreary factory town of Dufton, arrives in Warnley, to assume a secure, but poorly paid, post in the Borough Treasurers Department. Determined to succeed, and ignoring the warnings of a colleague, Soames Donald Houston, he is drawn to Susan Brown Heather Sears, daughter of the local industrial magnate, Mr. Brown Donald Wolfit. He deals with Joes social climbing by sending Susan abroad Joe turns for solace to Alice Aisgill Simone Signoret, an unhappily married older woman who falls in love with him.When Susan returns from her holiday, shortly after the lovers Joe and Alice have quarrelled, Joe seduces Susan, and then returns to Alice. Discovering that Susan is pregnant, Mr. Brown, after failing to buy off Joe, coerces him nto giving Alice up and marrying his daughter. Deserted and heartbroken, Alice launches into a drinking bout which culminates in her caraccident death. Distraught, Joe disappears and, after being beaten unconscious by a gang of thugs for making a drunken pass at one of their women and left beside a canal, is recovered by his colleague Soames in time to marry Susan. ........

Source: Wikipedia