From the exact halfway point of Room At The Top (1959), based on the novel by John Braine, screenplay by Neil Patterson, directed by Jack Clayton, and starring Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, and Heather Sears.
The halfway point here definitely marks the turning point in this film. Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) has moved to the wealthy Yorkshire town of Warnley; he comes from a working-class background and dreams of having it all. At this point in the film, he has begun wooing Susan (Heather Sears), the daughter of a wealthy factory owner, in his quest to get a ‘room at the top’. Only he has also fallen in love with an older married woman Alice Aisgill (Simone Signoret). Alice, unlike Susan, is interesting and a woman of the world. At this turning point the two fall out over a anecdote Alice is telling about the time she once posed nude for a painter. The argument ends the relationship, and from here his sights will only be set on Susan. He is young and ambitious, but by the time he realises his own hypocrisy towards Alice he is already set to get everything bar what he really wants.
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