"Life at the Top" from 1965 is touted as a sequel to "Room at the Top," which it is, but you could watch this without having seen "Room" without much problem.

Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) has had his dreams fulfilled - he's married to the boss' daughter (Jean Simmons), he's working for his father-in-law in a high position, and he's managed to squash his lower-class upbringing. However, he's miserable. He's bored out of his mind and angry with his wife, who keeps getting her father to pay for things. When he meets a pretty TV correspondent (Honor Blackman) he perks up.

This is a good movie with an excellent performance by Laurence Harvey, who really picks up where he left off with Joe Lampton, angry, ambitious, resentful, and womanizing. Jean Simmons is in the Heather Sears role, and she's wonderful - beautiful, sensual, and determined to keep her husband despite her own failings. I've always thought Simmons was highly underrated as she was always in competition with Audrey Hepburn and other bigger stars of the day for roles. She is glorious in her British films that she made when she was very young, and of course, Elmer Gantry and Angel Face, to name only two.

Worth seeing, and it answers the question, will Joe Lampton ever find happiness?

The Kitchen Sink was beginning to get a bit clogged up by the time "Life at the Top" appeared. This was the sequel to Jack Clayton's "Room at the Top" and the critical reception was a good deal cooler than it was back in 1959 which was a pity as this is a pretty good film. Joe, (Laurence Harvey, obviously, and very good indeed), hasn't really changed his ways. He's still married to the boss' daughter, (now played by a superb Jean Simmons), but he embarks on an affair with TV anchor woman Honor Blackman while wife Susan plays around with Harvey's friend Michael Craig.

There isn't a great deal that is new in Mordecai Richler's script which basically rehashes the first picture, (and Blackman is certainly no match for Signoret), but director Ted Kotcheff keeps it ticking along very nicely and Oswald Morris' cinematography is definitely a bonus. In the end it boils down to the chemistry between Harvey and Simmons and they certainly rise to the occasion. No classic then but no turkey either.

Still valid and with a great cast and storyline. Harvey shows a greater range of acting ability in this role and Simmons is excellent, as is Honor Blackman.

Edward Fox makes his first appearance in film - for about 20 seconds !!

I enjoyed this more than Room at the Top, there was more of a storyline and Laurence Harvey wasn't quite so wooden. Jean Simmonds was far stronger as Joes wife, Susan, than Heather Sears in the first film, and this gave a lot more bite to the relationship. A lot was made of the canal-side development, but this never reached a conclusion. It was just left hanging as the film concluded the other storylines.

The first film was set in 1947 and this was 10 years on, so Harry's 10th birthday would have been early 1958, but there were at least two references to be set in the 1960s. The first, in the background is the soundtrack album for Never on a Sunday, which was released in 1960. Also, Joe telling his father-in-law about his halitosis refers to a Christmas Party in '61 and by inference this was at least a couple of years previously.

As a sequel to "Room at the Top" by the same author John Braine, it is less passionate but more intricate and psychological, as Laurence Harvey finds himself in the difficult position of being married to Jean Simmons, the daughter of a prominent businessman (Donald Wolfit) who gives him everything as his son-in-law except integrity and self-respect. He finds himself at a loss missing this most important thing in life as his wife deceives him with his best friend, and he tries in desperation to find an alternative, which he believes himself to find in Honor Blackman, a successful political TV journalist. The experiment is not very successful though, and he still considers himself stuck in the net of his father-in-law, while Jean Simmons is very different from her father. It's a complicated case which poses many problems and questions, but ultimately there seems to be some solution in the form of some compromise. The cast is excellent, every actor here is super and just right, even Robert Morley as a competitor of Donald Wolfit adds to the party, and above all this is a humanly interesting film, posing questions and problems of marriage, position, career, integríty and loyalty/disloyalty - an extra touch of excellence to the film is Richard Addinsell's music, which is needed indeed in the bleak environment of industrial Yorkshire. Jean Simmons as always lifts the film to a very interesting level, Laurence Harvey is an excellent match for her in acting, while all the others merely add details to the predicament of these two. If you have seen "Room at the Top", this will not be a disappointment to you.

By Allah, this movie depressed me. Not many people are like a brain this movie because they all have their flaws and of course that is like real life still at remains and moving you want to be entertained where is the entertainment offered in this film flick are not really the kind you want to write home to your parents about and because of this once again the movie ends up to be pretty boring especially if you haven't read your original book on which this movie by the way even is a sequel on so you wonder what it is all about and then when you watch the movie you cannot help but feeling disappointed in the depressing life choices some of the characters are making. Personally I did not dislike the acting performances and by Allah Jean Simmons is always a wonderful marvel to look it. Mashallah!!

I came to this film not having seen Room at the Top (1959) and not having read the novel. So my thoughts are based on it being a stand alone film - which might be a failing on my part, it is a sequel after all. I suspect this film was made (like so many sequels) on the back of the success of Room at the Top, rather than a stand alone piece of work. Anyway, my view of this film must be taken in this context.

Notwithstanding it's production in 1965 it somehow felt dated, perhaps exacerbated by being in black and white. The themes and the characters all seemed so stereotypical, outmoded and emotionally shallow. The main character played by Laurence Harvey (Joe Lampton) was very hard to like, he didn't seem to have many redeeming facets to his personality at all, often I felt I didn't really care what happened to him. There needs to be something in a main character to carry you through the story from beginning to end, not as in this case a man managing with a colossal chip on his shoulder. This wasn't the fault of Mr Harvey - more the way his character was written. This pretty much goes for all concerned. A superb cast do the best with what they have, hamstrung by what is often wooden dialogue.

My interest was only sustained by seeing the film as a document to mid-sixties England, the gorgeous Jean Simmons and glimpses of some fabulous cars - especially a Maserati Quattroporte.

This worthy sequel to "Room At the Top" (1958) reunites a few from the old gang, Laurence Harvey, Donald Wolfitt, and Allan Cuthbertson and welcomes Honor Blackman, Nigel Davenport and Robert Morley. Heather Sears has morphed, somewhat improbably, into Jean Simmons. DP Oswald Morris conveys a sense of doom in the saga of Joe Lampton, which could be subtitled, "you may take the boy out of the proletariat, but you can't take the proletarian out of the boy." Rigid class divisions, more a feature of England than most other countries, are clearly limned here. John Braine's themes of sin, forgiveness and redemption are well-articulated.

As sequels go, this isn't half bad. Aspirational, working-class lad "Joe" (Laurence Harvey) has managed to marry the boss's daughter "Susan" (Jean Simmons), has the semi detached trappings of middle class luxury but his life consists little of substance. His career is going nowhere fast and he is soon being tempted by the visiting television star "Norah" (Honor Blackman) as his wife embarks on an affair de coeur of her own with the rather unfortunately wooden Michael Craig ("Mark"). Has he the fortitude to go it alone; does he even really want to? The story isn't as potent as "Room at the Top" (1959) but both Harvey and Simmons as well as a strong series of cameos from the likes of Sir Donald Wolfit and Robert Morley still work well to convey many of the frustrations of a young man trying to escape the bonds of a class system and of a woman who has never had to want for anything, efficiently. It looks good. The photography is intense, almost intrusive at times, and the score from the accomplished Richard Addinsell adds much to the story and in many ways substitutes for a rather wordy and descriptive narrative. It's a good film, not a great one, and it is good to see Simmons remind us just how adaptable an actress she was.

After watching Life at the Top, it's pretty clear Jean Simmons wanted to play Maggie the Cat in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She plays the wife of hunky Laurence Harvey, but try as she does, she can't get him into bed. In one scene, she rubs lotion on her topless self to try and entice him—but don't worry, the camera captures that scene from the mirror, so there's no nudity.

Life at the Top is the sequel to Room at the Top, but if you haven't seen the 1959 film, you won't really be lost. In 1959, Laurence Harvey slept and connived his way to the top, and six years later, we see what his life is like after he's achieved what he thought he wanted. He has a strained relationship with his son, a bad marriage, and hardly any respect in the community. While there are a couple of good scenes where Larry and Jean spar off each other and show off their acting chops, most of the movie is incredibly boring. The majority of the film focuses on his aspirations at work, but I can't think of anyone who would be watching it for that part of the plot. Overall, it's a very overdone genre, and this film is neither imaginative nor entertaining.

Not bad, sequel wise. If it's a long way from "Godfather, Part Two" it is an even farther distance from "Godfather, Part Three". The first half is definitely the lesser part. Canadian director Ted Kotcheff and scenarist, Mordechai Richler (the "Duddy Kravitz" team) examine British snobbery, adultery, and Tory politics amusingly and with a lively pace but do not really give us anything that the 1958 film did not present in much more dramatic fashion. And while the entire cast gives solid performances, as expected from Brit actors, there is no character in the sequel as compelling as Simone Signoret was in the original playing a literal and figurative outsider who must be sacrificed on the altar of Joe Lampton's desire for wealth and status.

However, in the second half a most interesting change occurs. Joe decides to leave his wife and cushy, if humiliating, job in the provinces and journey to London to be with a woman he's convinced will rejuvenate him. The opposite happens as she rises in her profession while he is stuck in occupational limbo and suddenly Joe is faced, as are most of us sometime in our existences, with the question, How will I live my life? I, for one, found that Kotcheff and Richler posed this question interestingly and answered it most intelligently (if heavy handedly, at times, as in the ending where Joe is literally "locked in" to his job). And since interest and intelligence are in short supply in the cinema I'm glad I didn't pull the plug on this movie halfway through. Give it a B.

PS...Is it just me or did Jean Simmons get hotter with age?