The British class system depends on its nation’s citizens knowing their place and not getting any fancy ideas above their station. Two films from the late 1950s and mid-1960s show what can happen to those who challenge this convention.
The image on the left is from Room At The Top (1959) directed by Jack Clayton. The second is from John Schlesinger’s Darling (1965).
The smarmy anti-hero of the first is Joe Lampton, a man on the make stylishly played by Laurence Harvey. This film is based on John Braine’s novel of the same title. Braine described his creation as a man who behaves “like a little boy with his nose pressed against the window of a beautiful candy store.” Lampton is determined to defy those who label him as a small town nobody and savour the sweet stuff money can buy.
Getting the girl (the boss’s daughter), the top job in the company and a handsome salary would in other circumstances constitute a happy ending but here they are the ingredients of a personal tragedy. The look on Lampton’s face as he puts on his suit jacket is not that of a man happy with his lot.
In Working Class Hero, John Lennon sang “There’s room at the top /They are telling you still/But first you must learn to smile as you kill. The Bible (Matthew 16:26) issues a similar warning: “What will it profit a man, though he should win all the whole world, if he loses his own soul? Joe Lampton does not heed these warnings. The film shows that upward mobility is possible but breaking through Britain’s rigid class-bound barriers may come with increased riches but you must be willing to live with no peace of mind.
Julie Christie’s look of puzzlement in the image from Darling is also one of dissatisfaction. The unmade bed in the background is not the aftermath of a sexual romp but seems to symbolise one of many sleepless nights.
Christie plays Diana Scott, a glamourous model and free-spirit who seems to have the world at her feet. But like Room At The Top, Darling is a cautionary tale that shows the illusions and delusions surrounding material success.
Despite progressing from the drabness of a Northern English city in Schlesinger’s previous film, Billy Liar(1963) to the bright lights of ‘swinging’ London the film has no fairy-tale ending. The most serious sticking points to her ambitions derive from her flawed choice of men. The possessive television reporter Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde) envies her success, top advertising executive Miles Brand (Laurence Harvey again) is in love with himself and fashion photographer Malcom (Roland Curram) prefers men to women. The supposedly glamourous jet-set lifestyle she aspires to is soon exposed as being empty and superficial. Far from extending a range of possibilities, the European scenes set in France and Italy portray the decadent and vacuous adornments of conspicuous wealth.
For all the talk of liberalism and freedom, Diana Scott’s options are still limited to male partners with all too familiar hang-ups. Above all, with their power and privilege to consider, these men are disinclined to give their status up lightly. Scott is temporarily good for their public image but little else. The manner in which she ends up in a loveless marriage as a trophy wife to Prince Cesare della Romita (José Luis de Vilallonga) is a familiar example of man’s controlling instincts holding sway and an implicit warning to women not to set their sights too high.
The original movie poster to Room At The Top boasted that it was ‘A savage story of love and ambition.’ A more accurate tagline would have been ‘Be careful what you wish for’.
In Darling, Julie Christie’s character might have been the living embodiment of female emancipation but the odds were stacked against her from the start. When the competition is between one woman and the patriarchy, there can be only one winner.
This is the second of a series of blog posts tied to mirror images in British films as an offshoot to a book I am working on entitled Mirror Visions – from the new wave to the new wyrd. Reflections on British cinema
