Man at the Top | |
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Directed by | Mike Vardy |
Written by | John Junkin Hugh Whitemore |
Produced by | Peter Charlesworth Jock Jacobsen |
Starring | Kenneth Haigh Nanette Newman Harry Andrews |
Cinematography | Brian Probyn |
Edited by | Chris Barnes |
Music by | Roy Budd |
Production companies | Hammer Films Dufton Films |
Distributed by | Anglo-EMI |
Release date |
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Running time | 92 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Man at the Top is a 1973 British drama film directed by Mike Vardy and starring Kenneth Haigh, spun off from the television series Man at the Top , which itself was inspired by the 1959 film Room at the Top and its 1965 sequel Life at the Top .
Joe Lampton is promoted to managing director of a pharmaceutical company, and becomes involved with Lord Ackerman, the powerful chairman, who is also his father-in-law. But Joe makes a shocking discovery: his predecessor committed suicide because of his involvement in a drug that left 1,000 African women sterile. Joe threatens to reveal all to the press, while Lord Ackerman seeks to persuade him otherwise, by offering him promotion to Chief Executive. [1]
Shooting took place from 3 March to 7 April 1973.
The film was not a success at the box office. [2]
Monthly Film Bulletin said it was "too much like an episode of a TV series stretched to feature length". [3]
"Network on Air" noted the film as, "offering a grittier treatment than the 1959 film adaptation and the subsequent television series". [4]
Allmovie noted, " Nanette Newman, a busy doe-eyed ingenue of the 1960s, is quietly effective as the middle-aged Mrs. Lampton." [5]
Room at the Top is a 1959 British film based on the 1957 novel of the same name by John Braine. It was adapted by Neil Paterson, directed by Jack Clayton, and produced by John and James Woolf. The film stars Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston, and Hermione Baddeley.
Laurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born British actor and film director. He was born to Lithuanian Jewish parents and emigrated to South Africa at an early age, before later settling in the United Kingdom after World War II. In a career that spanned a quarter of a century, Harvey appeared in stage, film and television productions primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States.
John Gerard Braine was an English novelist. Braine is usually listed among the angry young men, a loosely defined group of English writers who emerged on the literary scene in the 1950s.
Harry Stewart Fleetwood Andrews, CBE was an English actor known for his film portrayals of tough military officers. His performance as Regimental Sergeant Major Wilson in The Hill (1965) alongside Sean Connery earned Andrews the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for the 1966 BAFTA Award for Best British Actor. The first of his more than 80 film appearances was in The Red Beret in 1953.
The revisionist Western is a sub-genre of the Western film. Designated a post-classical variation of the traditional Western, the revisionist subverts the myth and romance of the traditional by means of character development and realism to present a less simplistic view of life in the "Old West". While the traditional Western always embodies a clear boundary between good and evil, the revisionist Western does not.
Carry On Nurse is a 1959 British comedy film, the second in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). Of the regular team, it featured Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey, with Hattie Jacques and Leslie Phillips. The film was written by Norman Hudis based on the play Ring for Catty by Patrick Cargill and Jack Beale. It was the top-grossing film of 1959 in the United Kingdom and, with an audience of 10.4 million, had the highest cinema viewing of any of the "Carry On" films. Perhaps surprisingly, it was also highly successful in the United States, where it was reported that it played at some cinemas for three years.
John Harvey was an English actor. He appeared in 52 films, two television films and made 70 television guest appearances between 1948 and 1979.
Mona Lee Washbourne was an English actress of stage, film, and television. Her most critically acclaimed role was in the film Stevie (1978), late in her career, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award.
Nanette Newman is an English actress and author. She appeared in nine films directed by her husband Bryan Forbes, including Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), The Whisperers (1967), Deadfall (1968), The Stepford Wives (1975) and International Velvet (1978) for which she won the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actress. She was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for another Forbes directed film, The Raging Moon (1971).
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City is a 1969 British film starring Robert Ryan, Chuck Connors and Nanette Newman. It features the character Captain Nemo and is inspired by Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It was written by Pip and Jane Baker.
Kenneth William Michael Haigh was an English actor. He first came to public recognition for playing the role of Jimmy Porter in the play Look Back in Anger in 1956 opposite Mary Ure in London's West End theatre. Haigh's performance in the role on stage was critically acclaimed as a prototype dramatic working-class anti-hero in post-Second World War English drama.
Life at the Top is a 1965 British drama film, a production of Romulus Films released by Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was by Mordecai Richler, based on the 1962 novel Life at the Top by John Braine, and is a sequel to the film Room at the Top (1959). It was directed by Ted Kotcheff and produced by James Woolf, with William Kirby as associate producer. The music score was by Richard Addinsell and the cinematography by Oswald Morris. The film's art director, Edward Marshall, received a 1966 BAFTA Award nomination.
London Belongs to Me is a British film released in 1948, directed by Sidney Gilliat, and starring Richard Attenborough and Alastair Sim. It was based on the novel London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins, which was also the basis for a seven-part series made by Thames Television shown in 1977.
Brian Osborne was an English actor. He was best known for his roles in Upstairs, Downstairs and The Sandbaggers. Osborne also had minor roles in six Carry On films as well the TV series Carry On Laughing.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a 1993 film, the fourth film adaptation of the Charles Dickens unfinished 1870 novel of the same name. This was the last film of Barry Evans.
Twice Round the Daffodils is a 1962 British comedy film directed by Gerald Thomas and starring Juliet Mills, Donald Sinden, Donald Houston, Kenneth Williams, Ronald Lewis, Andrew Ray, Joan Sims and Jill Ireland. The film was adapted from the play Ring for Catty by Patrick Cargill and Jack Beale. Carry On Nurse from 1959 was based on the same play.
Man at the Top was a British kitchen sink drama television series that originally aired on ITV, lasting for 23 episodes between 1970 and 1972. The series depicted the character of Joe Lampton, the protagonist of John Braine's novels Room at the Top (1957) and Life at the Top (1962), and of the films based on those novels. In 1973, a spin-off film from the series, Man at the Top, was released.
Talking Feet is a 1937 British musical film directed by John Baxter and starring Hazel Ascot, Enid Stamp-Taylor and Jack Barty. It was made at Shepperton Studios. The film's sets were designed by John Bryan.
Escape from Red Rock is a 1957 American Western film written and directed by Edward Bernds. The film stars Brian Donlevy, Eilene Janssen, Gary Murray, Jay C. Flippen, William Edward Phipps and Myron Healey. The film was released in December 1957, by 20th Century Fox.
Son of a Bad Man is a 1949 American Western film directed by Ray Taylor starring Lash LaRue and Al "Fuzzy" St. John. The film was shot at the Iverson Movie Ranch.