![Image](http://pic80.picturetrail.com/VOL1935/12012169/21363092/354404570.jpg)
Room At the Top (1959) which airs tonight (2/10) at 8pm on TCM, was directed by Jack Clayton from a novel by John Braine. One of a handful of memorable adult-themed movies from the late '50s, it stars Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret. Miss Signoret and screenwriter Neil Paterson won Oscars for their work here.
The film, which was part of the kitchen sink wave of British films that looked critically and realistically at the class bound structure of British society as the Empire disintegrated is told here from the POV of the ambitious, amoral Harvey, who soon finds his involvement with the magnificent Signoret inconvenient. Harvey, an actor who is sometimes difficult to describe (or to like) was at his best in this film, as well as The Manchurian Candidate (1962). His attempt to gain a foothold in the American cinema was never fully successful, in part because Harvey was hard for audiences to pigeonhole as hero or villain, and was most consistently just disturbing, (but never really boring).
Simone Signoret, if you are unfamiliar with her work in French films, must be seen. I suspect that most of us know her memorable appearance opposite Oskar Werner from Ship of Fools, but this film, as well as Casque D'Or, La Ronde, Diabolique, Thérèse Raquin and her wonderful later appearance in Army of Darkness have earned her the reputation as one of the very best actresses who ever stepped in front of the camera. See what you think.