Rating: 
Summary: confessions of a teenager.
Review: After Diabolique, you wonder how possibly Signoret could make ANOTHER masterpiece. Well ~~~ here it is! A truly deserved BEST ACTRESS Oscar went to Signoret as well as an Oscar for the screenplay.Harvey is most effective in this film, trying to dismiss the "class" system after the war. Every role is expertly cast, and after the film's release, the British were ecstatic, saying "British filmmaking is HERE again."But it is Signoret who steals the film, in EVERY scene, she is riviting. Sexy, vulnerable, smart and portraying a woman whose love is doomed at the start. The scene in which her and Harvey fight is filmed almost with ONE shot. A tearjerker, but not a soap-opera.A classic film, and one for your DVD library. The print is clear and sharp with only ONE splice. Again, I would want the original trailer, but that can be overlooked when you get an overwhelming film such as this! A MUST HAVE! Landmark filmmaking and acting!
Rating:
Summary: SIMONE SIGNORET at HER FINEST!
Review: After Diabolique, you wonder how possibly Signoret could make ANOTHER masterpiece. Well ~~~ here it is! A truly deserved BEST ACTRESS Oscar went to Signoret as well as an Oscar for the screenplay.Harvey is most effective in this film, trying to dismiss the "class" system after the war. Every role is expertly cast, and after the film's release, the British were ecstatic, saying "British filmmaking is HERE again."But it is Signoret who steals the film, in EVERY scene, she is riviting. Sexy, vulnerable, smart and portraying a woman whose love is doomed at the start. The scene in which her and Harvey fight is filmed almost with ONE shot. A tearjerker, but not a soap-opera.A classic film, and one for your DVD library. The print is clear and sharp with only ONE splice. Again, I would want the original trailer, but that can be overlooked when you get an overwhelming film such as this! A MUST HAVE! Landmark filmmaking and acting!
Rating:
Summary: AN FILM WITH OVERWHELMING POWERT AND PUNCH
Review: An extraordinary film, one that retains its full impact to this day. The story is fairly simple ---- man loves a woman, but loves and covets even more the money and power that another woman can provide. This British film is atmospheric and very vivid, aided greatly by the black and white filming, which adds a starkness and a reality that is almost painful. Laurence Harvey was a very skilled actor whose tragic early death in the early 1970's choked off a brilliant career. Simone Signoret, one of the greatest actresses since the end of World War II, won a much-deserved Academy Award as best actress of 1959 for her work in this film (she also died at an age where more great work would have been forthcoming). This is not a film to make you feel good, but one that has still has a lot of truth and empathy to it. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: MADAME SIGNORET IS BACK
Review: English director Jack Clayton is well known for his 1961 adaptation of Henry James 's The Turn of the Screw, baptized THE INNOCENTS, with Deborah Kerr. Two years before, he had directed A ROOM AT THE TOP, a movie which received numerous international awards. Forty years later, this movie hits the DVD market hoping for a second career. Does it worth it ? Without doubt, YES !Shot in black & white, partly in studio, partly in an industrial town of England, A ROOM AT THE TOP is a drama involving a middle-class employee played by Laurence Harvey trying to obtain " a place in the sun " by seducing the only daughter of the richest man around. Unfortunately, he also falls in love with Simone Signoret, the 40 years old wife of a member of the local bourgeoisie. Apart of the study of the subtle mechanisms that ruled (rules ?) english social classes, A ROOM AT THE TOP gives us the opportunity to admire Simone Signoret, in her glory, an actress who, with the italian performer Anna Magnani and Bette Davis, is one of the best actresses ever. Too bad that the DVD is not at the level of the movie. A DVD for your library.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful film, poor transfer
Review: I don't think I need to add anything to the glowing reviews this film has received -- back when it was released in 1959 or now on Amazon's website. I hope that Criterion gains the rights to re-release the film with a clean, sharp image. Screenplay, two extroardinary central performances (Harvey and Signoret seem made for it), direction and location filming add up to a realistic, brutal love story of a young man with values in the wrong place. See it anyway. The beginning of the DVD is also partially missing -- an altogether careless, rush job.
Rating:
Summary: confessions of a teenager.
Review: I was barely in my teens when I first saw this movie. Mylene Demongeot's comment about Ms. Signoret's Oscar triumph have been forgotten. That summer of 1959 is long gone; but I still cannot erase the image of Harvey and Signoret on the beach in raincoats [sans everything else]; her husky voice [Kathleen Turner inherited that charm]; and that unforgettable backward handwave as she walks away from Harvey. ONE of the all time ultimate movies about finding love in the wrong way, and very much about a woman and a man in love. Harvey, social climbing his way to the top [perhaps reflecting his own, beautiful, flawed, tragic life] has never been better - went on to do "Life at the Top" later. Wolfit, now forgotten by the younger ones - and possibly the inspiration for Albert Finney's "Sir" in "The Dresser" - is a formidable presence. Shot in velvet black and white this film pulsates with gritty sexuality. Worthy of being viewed over and over - together, alone, sad or happy - it always returns like the wayward lover it is, and leaves you depleted, but sated.
Rating: 
Summary: Angry Young Men Indeed
Review: Mr. Morris's review offers the requisite enlightenment per the Angry Young Men phenomenon. Alas, the fellow who actually wrote the screenplay for "Room at the Top," though young and somewhat angry, was in fact the Canadian novelist and essayist Mordecai Richler, which, I suppose, is why he does not merit membership in this august group of Brits.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding English drama
Review: Powerful drama with impressive performances that will have you captivated. Admittedly the base of this story has been recycled so many times in cinema since but this film explores characters and situations in a realistic, true to British Free Cinema way. Won an Oscar for best script and Simone Signoret's great performance. Her continental air and sophistication create an antithesis with the mundane, English, small town setting.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Film
Review: Simone Signoret will break your heart! She deservedly won an Oscar for one of the all time great performances ever given by any actress. She is simply devastating. Matched all the way by Laurence Harvey, alternately cruel and callous and then warm and tender. Their scenes together ring true and are timeless depictions of deep emotional and sexual intimacy. The other themes of the film, class distinctions etc. are still valid...but it will be Simone, touching the heart of this callow young man and making him better for it, feeling their age difference yet unable to stop herself from loving and hoping for happiness against her own experience, that will haunt you. A shattering film masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Film
Review: Simone Signoret will break your heart! She deservedly won an Oscar for one of the all time great performances ever given by any actress. She is simply devastating. Matched all the way by Laurence Harvey, alternately cruel and callous and then warm and tender. Their scenes together ring true and are timeless depictions of deep emotional and sexual intimacy. The other themes of the film, class distinctions etc. are still valid...but it will be Simone, touching the heart of this callow young man and making him better for it, feeling their age difference yet unable to stop herself from loving and hoping for happiness against her own experience, that will haunt you. A shattering film masterpiece.
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