Truly Dreadful Film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Christmas Day 2016 was the first time I saw this film despite my 70 years of age.Was this because British TV networks did not consider this film had enough popular appeal?I enjoyed seeing a young Ian McShane(Lovejoy), Samantha Eggar, John Hurt. Johnny Briggs, (Mike Baldwin in Coronation Street), Jeremy Brett, David Sumner the latter of whom I had not seen since he played Patrick Sullavan in the mid sixties long running t.v.series "The Sullavan Brothers".As to the plot of university students who never seem to do any study but spend their time larking around even finding time to have an affair with a tutor's wife; I found unconvincing.Every undergraduate I have met are kept busy studying their subject, going to tutorials and lectures, writing essays if they are serious using tax payers money, (remember this is 1962 and one could study at University then at the tax payers expense) to fund their study.Even though this was filmed in 1962 which is now 54 years ago, the actors still looked too old!The script was variable and I awarded this film 6/10 as above average.

For some reason this Room At The Top clone has eluded me up to now, not that I missed much. The parallels are striking; 'working class' lad slightly out of his element when thrown into contact with a class above his own, involved with two women, one 'nice' girl his own age and one older married woman. For Joe Lampton read Harry Brown (Ian McShane) and for local government read local university. There's even a nod to Joe Lampton marrying upwards via Harry's schoolfriend, also on campus who has snared Jeremy Brett's scion of a sweet tycoon. In referential terms Harry Brown is like a prototype of Jimmy Porter albeit some six years after Look Back In Anger, and even more bizarrely he comes off as a somewhat neutered Porter lacking the vitriolic pen of John Osborne to round him off. The cast is interesting to say the least, Paul Rogers unusually wooden, Johnny Briggs sporting a Welsh accent that fits where it touches, a barely recognizable John Hurt with the timbre already there but little hint of the fine actor he would become but all of these are dwarfed by the finest acting of all by the tragic Virginia Maskell. A curio at best.

This is the sort of movie that should be so bad it is good. It is just bad, period. Notable only for being the debuts of some good actors who do the best they can with unintentionally parodic material. But the pacing is so slow and the characters so uninteresting my only reaction was to sit watching, stupefied, as it just went on and on.This 'angry young man' film was brilliantly parodied by Harry Enfield in NORBERT SMITH: A LIFE which I dearly wish I had watched instead.

This film is well worth a look despite it having some weaknesses that stop it from truly being a memorable film. Strangely, the greatest weakness this film has is its central plotline, that being the affair with Harry Brown and the professor's wife. This comes across as melodramatic and somewhat forced while the rest of the film is realistic and absorbing.