Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)

This film, based on Alan Silitoe's novel, was part of the 'angry young man' films. Albert Finney made his first brief film appearance, as Mick, in The Entertainer (1960) and later became well known to American audiences in Tom Jones (1963) and Two for the Road (1967). However, it was in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning-- No. 14 on the BFI Top 100— that he first carried a lead role.As the movie opens, we see a wide shot of a factory town (Nottingham). The camera then moves in toward the noisy, smoky-stack factory where Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney) works, waiting for his next fag, the end of the day, his next weekend, and his weekly paycheck of 14 bob for turning out 1000 machine parts a day. His voice-over narration shows his disgust for his co-workers, who either were beaten down by the war and settle for what they have, or try too hard to advance, like Jack (Bryan Pringle), who constantly sucks up to the boss: 'Yes, Mr.Robboe, No, Mr.Robboe.' As he Arthur says in the narration, 'All I want is a good time. The rest is just propaganda.' His parents only want to settle down, survive, and watch the telly all the time. Arthur, on the other hand, wants to get a little fun out of life. But, even these aspirations appear overly ambitious when, at the end of the day, he rides his bike home to the lower-class housing project where he lives with his family and pays weekly board to his mother. He, too, is trapped in Nottingham and its limitations but just doesn't know it or doesn't want to think about it. His nights and weekends are totally taken up hanging out with his chums, drinking, and dating the girls he meets at the local pub.His main girl is Jack's wife, Brenda (Rachel Roberts). Even though Jack and Brenda are married and have a boy, Jack is so busy working and fathering their son that Brenda and Arthur can shack up regularly in their house without him even knowing about it. After Arthur meets another attractive single girl, Doreen (Shirley Anne Field), who works in another factory, he learns from Brenda that she is late with her period and that the baby she is carrying is HIS…no doubt about it. Now, he must help 'take care' of Brenda's problem: Abortion or no abortion? Who? How? When? He has his 'Aunt' Ada (Hylda Baker) take care of the abortion, but it doesn't work. One night when Arthur takes Doreen to the Fair on a date, he sees Brenda and tries to talk to her away from the crowded midway. But, when Jack sees the two together, he realizes that his wife is cuckolding with Arthur and has some soldiers beat up Arthur in the alley. This beating lays him up for a while and puts him out of commission.When Arthur returns to work at the factory, he tries to pick a fight with Jack. But, Jack just tells him, 'You're too much of a trouble- maker, Arthur. You should take things as they come and enjoy life.' As the movie ends, Arthur is about to marry Doreen, thinking his life may be different than that of others in the town. But, the movie seems to come full circle without Arthur learning very much or aspiring much higher than those he hated at the beginning of the movie. As Doreen and Arthur are out on a nearby hillside, Arthur throws a rock toward a nearby house. Doreen tells him he shouldn't throw things like that, because someday he might be throwing a rock at his own house. Arthur replies, 'I know...but it won't be the last one I throw, you know.' Arthur is already whipped but he takes comfort in the fact that he made a final little rebellion.

a slice of brit life, 1960 and a bit before (club bands in jackets and ties, still); great finney, great screenplay (and loneliness of long distance runner), good rachel roberts but finny early 20s, she mid 30s and looking mid 40s, so as arthur's love interest has you wondering at the start; but that's part of it, a coworkers wife, easy to do, and another way of showing his contempt for family and getting ahead-all propaganda; on the other hand he gives money to his family, buy yourself something; the bleakness, work then play and drink, is tail end of the gin age (good book called gin on the history) when workers were 6 days a week, 10 or more hours a day, dickensian, and one day to get as blasted as possible- to forget it all; weak link is heralded director with one very not new-wave static shot after another; good part, movie wise, is there's no artifice; actors are all in, no later frills like alfie turning to the camera letting us in on his cynicism- like we didn't get that already; so a 7? not a great story; a humdrum story very well done

Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960) starring Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field, Rachel Roberts, and Norman Rossington is a marvelous, compelling movie based on a story by Alan Sillitoe, who also wrote The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner which became a wonderful movie in 1962 starring Tom Courtenay (see my separate review for that film).The film is a portrait of young factory worker Arthur Seaton still living at home with his parents, and working as a lathe machinist making machined metal parts for industrial use, and doing it faster and better than most other workers in the grim and gray factory where he works, an open expanse where hundreds of workers tend hundreds of work stations under a high roof in dirty and depressing circumstances.Albert Finney plays the role of "Arthur Seaton" brilliantly, and this movie made him a star and led to Tom Jones (1963) also starring Albert Finney, made in color, done on a big budget, and filled with production values....but also about a young man who insists on being independent and refusing to cave into demands and expectations made by inferior people who surround and supervise him. He doesn't care about his reputation, and seems to emerge from the many fights and altercations he is faced with victoriously.Set backs he endures are minor. Victories he achieves seem major.Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960) is about a young man led and guided by an inner force which makes him a winner, in spite of lack of mentoring, money, social position, parental support or guidance, and the mediocre opportunities and people part of his dreary world.He wants to do better than those around him, and he does.Viewers watch his progress, come to like him immediately (Albert Finney has the most infectious grin I've ever seen in the movies....the same grin shines through in Miller's Crossing [1990], a movie he stared in 30 years later where he plays a crime boss of Irish descent in America.) The movie begins with scenes showing his successful adulterous sexual relationship with "Brenda," the wife (played well by Rachel Roberts) of Finney's straitlaced boss at work.As the story continues, it shows the problems which result from that, then Finney's abandonment of that girl, and finally his connection with an unusually pretty, thoughtful, reliable, attentive young girl named "Doreen" (played well by Shirley Anne Field) to whom he becomes engaged and plans to marry at the movie's end.In a curious way, the movie has the same "feel good ending" which "B" cowboy movies were famous for in which the hero rides off into the sunset after having set wrong things right for grateful Westerners.Alan Sillitoe is a truly great and thoughtful writer who recognized the inner strength and potential of noble young men born to low circumstances, but who are guided and delivered to good things by an inner knowledge of qualities they have and were born to use, regardless of what surrounding circumstances and bad people decree.Sillitoe's portraits of "angry young men" who are winners seems to favor "nature" in the "nature versus nurture" controversy and explanation of social behavior and outcomes.---------------Written by Tex Allen, SAG Actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Com and choose "Tex Allen" "resume" for contact information, movie credits, and biographical information about Tex Allen. Tex Allen has reviewed more than 40 movies posted on the website WWW.IMDb.Com (the world's largest movie information database, owned by Amazon.Com) as of January 2011.These include: 1. Alfie (1966) 29 July 2009 2. Alien (1979) 24 July 2009 3. All the Loving Couples (1969) 17 January 2011 4. All the President's Men (1976) 16 November 2010 5. American Graffiti (1973) 22 November 2010 6. Animal House (1978) 16 August 2009 7. Bullitt (1968) 23 July 2009 8. Captain Kidd (1945) 28 July 2009 9. Child Bride (1938) 24 September 2009 10. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) 22 September 2010 11. Destination Moon (1950) 17 January 2011 12. Detour (1945) 19 November 2010 13. Die Hard 2 (1990) 23 December 2010 14. The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) 19 November 2010 15. Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) 26 July 2009 16. King Solomon's Mines (1950) 1 December 2010 17. Knute Rockne All American (1940) 2 November 2010 18. Claire's Knee (1970) 15 August 2009 19. Melody Ranch (1940) 10 November 2010 20. Morning Glory (1933) 19 November 2010 21. Mush and Milk (1933) 17 January 2011 22. New Moon (1940) 3 November 2010 23. Pinocchio (1940) 6 November 2010 24. R2PC: Road to Park City (2000) 19 November 2010 25. Salt (2010) 24 August 2010 26. Sunset Blvd. (1950) 1 December 2010 27. The Great Dictator (1940) 1 November 2010 28. The King's Speech (2010) 19 January 2011 29. The Last Emperor (1987) 20 January 2011 30. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) 9 January 2011 31. The Man in the White Suit (1951) 5 August 2009 32. The Philadelphia Story (1940) 5 November 2010 33. The Social Network (2010) 19 January 2011 Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA movie actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for more information about Tex Allen. Tex Allen's email address is [email protected] Tes Allen Movie Credits, Biography, and 2012 photos at WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen. See other Tex Allen written movie reviews....almost 100 titles.... at: "http://imdb.com/user/ur15279309/comments" (paste this address into your URL Browser)

"Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" was at the time a fresh,innovative opus about the British working class that had previously been stereotyped and patronised by the public school,middle class dominated domestic cinema.Time has inevitably diminished it's impact,but it still remains a raw,no-nonsense,gritty and utterly absorbing slice of life with a sharp script,well-judged direction,excellent cinematography and a fine cast topped by an outstanding,star-making lead performance by Albert Finney.Arthur Seaton (Finney),a lathe operator at Nottingham's Raleigh Bicycle factory,is disillusioned with his humdrum life and surroundings,and compensates for the boredom with his rebellion against all kinds of authority,drunken weekends,his affair with a married woman,Brenda (Rachel Roberts) while courting the younger Doreen (Shirley Anne Field).Brenda becomes pregnant and Arthur tries to assist in having the baby aborted,but after being beaten up by some of Brenda's in-laws,seems to settle for conventional married life with Doreen on a new housing estate.The events described are pretty mild by modern standards,but this was startling and unprecedented for the late 50's/early 60's,as was the behaviour of it's working class anti-hero.As brilliantly portrayed by Finney,Arthur Seaton is a boorish,boozy,amoral,lying,selfish reprobate, yet audiences then and still do empathised with all the frustrations,disappointments and anger of a character who was prepared to rebel wholeheartedly against convention and his depressing lot.It is a tribute to Finney that he makes such a surly,unlikable,anti-social character as this oddly sympathetic,adding touches of warmth and humour while delivering some memorable lines written by Alan Sillitoe.Director Karel Reisz was admittedly from a patrician,public school background,but Finney (Salford) and Sillitoe (Nottingham), used experience of their humble backgrounds to great artistic advantage, which influenced many others from similar beginnings to express themselves artistically in years to come.The authentic locations are immaculately lensed by Freddie Francis,adding a kind of poetic realism that French cinema would be proud of,with fine acting work all round by Roberts,Field,Norman Rossington,Hylda Baker (better known for her comedy but giving a fine straight performance here),Bryan Pringle and others.The influence of"Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" cannot be denied enough,bringing forth a new,more realistic if not compassionate view of the British working classes,with warts and all,and allowing new acting,writing and directing talent to express itself to the fore after years of stuffiness and stultification.Other New Wave films were to follow (A TASTE OF HONEY,LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER,etc) and CORONATION STREET,still going after half a century,began on TV not long after with it's depictions of Northern working class life becoming an extraordinary success, but it is to this film, and talents like Karel Reisz,Alan Sillitoe and Albert Finney, that the breaking down of such barriers began, and that made it possible that realism in film could be every bit if not more entertaining than escapism.RATING:8 and a half out of 10.