It was adapted by Neil Paterson (with uncredited work by Mordecai Richler), directed by Jack Clayton (his feature-length debut), and produced by John and James Woolf.

Determined to get ahead, and ignoring the warnings of his colleague and flatmate Charlie Soames, he pursues Susan Brown, the daughter of a local industrial magnate.

Mr and Mrs Brown attempt to frustrate Joe's social climbing by persuading Joe's boss to encourage him to pursue a woman of his own class; getting him a job offer back in Dufton, which he refuses when he discovers the machination; and sending Susan on a trip abroad, but Susan remains smitten.

They decide she will ask for a divorce when she gets home but when she does, George refuses and declares he will ruin Joe and Alice, both socially and financially, if their relationship continues.

Heartbroken, Alice gets drunk in a pub and the next morning, while his co-workers are celebrating his engagement, Joe hears that she drove her car off a cliff to which she and he used to go together and died slowly over the course of several hours.

As they are driven away after the wedding, Susan's effusive praise of the ceremony is cut short when she notices that there are tears in Joe's eyes, which she misinterprets by saying "I believe you really are sentimental after all".

Producer James Woolf bought the film rights to Braine's novel, originally intending to cast Stewart Granger as Joe and Jean Simmons as Susan.

For the production, in addition to filming on sets at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, there was extensive location-shooting in Halifax, Yorkshire, which stood in for the fictional towns of Warnley and Dufton.

Some scenes were also filmed in Bradford, notably the one in which Joe travels on a bus and spots Susan in a lingerie shop and those outside the amateur dramatics theatre.