Saturday Night And Sunday Morning

Rating:
Summary: Great acting, uninspired story
Review: Finney is one of the great actors of his era, and the overall quality of acting in this film is excellent. But I find the story uninspired. A much better Brit film from this period, with some of same cast as Sat Night, is This Sporting Life.

Rating:
Summary: Ultimate example of British Free Cinema
Review: Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson joined forces and created the most representative film about life in England’s industrial north of the 60’s. Albert Finney will always be remembered for his powerful performance as a young factory worker who rebels against his humdrum life and the social establishments.
This characteristic British Free Cinema film is a must for any serious film collection.
Poor DVD packaging though. Noextras whatsoever, unfortunately.

Rating:
Summary: Ultimate example of British Free Cinema
Review: Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson joined forces and created the most representative film about life in England’s industrial north of the 60’s. Albert Finney will always be remembered for his powerful performance as a young factory worker who rebels against his humdrum life and the social establishments.
This characteristic British Free Cinema film is a must for any serious film collection.
Poor DVD packaging though. Noextras whatsoever, unfortunately.

Rating:
Summary: "All I'm out for is a good time-Anything else is propaganda"
Review: One of the best "kitchen sink" realism dramas which emerged from the "Angry Young Man" movement in Britain during the 60's. Albert Finney--who coulda won "The Hair Grease of the Year Award" with what looks like an entire bottle of brilliante in his hair--is superb as Arthur Seaton, a handsome but contentious factory worker with a huge chip on his shoulder due to his great disdain for the old guard and their old ways. An only child but alienated from his parents (who don't take much of an interest in him and let him go his own way) and stuck in a dead end job, it seems Arthur's anger arises from fear of knowing deep down he will end up like his parents and the old guard he rails so virulently against but is powerless because of economics and circumstance to do anything about it. As a result he develops an intensely anti-establishment, "don't mess with me" renegade attitude and leads a totally rebellious and irresponsible, devil-may-care life which includes increasing bad blood with an old lady neighbor, egging window-breakers on, incessant lying and a reckless affair with an older woman who's also his co-worker/friend's wife (wonderfully played by Rachel Roberts as Brenda) which results in her pregnancy as well as Arthur receiving a good bashing at the hands of the hapless hubby's brother and his pal. If not for the somewhat sobering effect of this beating as well as the greater and grounding influence of a beautiful young girl named Doreen (Shirley Ann Field) who's entered his life, Arthur could perhaps have become somebody like Robert de Niro's Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver." The movie ends memorably with Arthur and fiancee Doreen sitting on a field contemplating the houses around them, one of which he throws a rock at--one last defiant action before he presumably is forced to settle into domesticity and the status quo after they are married. Great and at times hilarious film which also gives an unflinching look at the world of the working, blue-collar class with its attention to their daily activities, relations, circumstances, frustrations, mode of dress, and particularly the vernacular--which can be hard to decipher at times but doesn't take anything away from the film's intensity. If you're an Albert Finney fan or of his style of acting during this period, check out the similarly roguishly handsome Ewan McGregor as his acting is reminiscent of Finney's early work.

Rating:
Summary: "All I'm out for is a good time-Anything else is propaganda"
Review: One of the best "kitchen sink" realism dramas which emerged from the "Angry Young Man" movement in Britain during the 60's. Albert Finney--who coulda won "The Hair Grease of the Year Award" with what looks like an entire bottle of brilliante in his hair--is superb as Arthur Seaton, a handsome but contentious factory worker with a huge chip on his shoulder due to his great disdain for the old guard and their old ways. An only child but alienated from his parents (who don't take much of an interest in him and let him go his own way) and stuck in a dead end job, it seems Arthur's anger arises from fear of knowing deep down he will end up like his parents and the old guard he rails so virulently against but is powerless because of economics and circumstance to do anything about it. As a result he develops an intensely anti-establishment, "don't mess with me" renegade attitude and leads a totally rebellious and irresponsible, devil-may-care life which includes increasing bad blood with an old lady neighbor, egging window-breakers on, incessant lying and a reckless affair with an older woman who's also his co-worker/friend's wife (wonderfully played by Rachel Roberts as Brenda) which results in her pregnancy as well as Arthur receiving a good bashing at the hands of the hapless hubby's brother and his pal. If not for the somewhat sobering effect of this beating as well as the greater and grounding influence of a beautiful young girl named Doreen (Shirley Ann Field) who's entered his life, Arthur could perhaps have become somebody like Robert de Niro's Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver." The movie ends memorably with Arthur and fiancee Doreen sitting on a field contemplating the houses around them, one of which he throws a rock at--one last defiant action before he presumably is forced to settle into domesticity and the status quo after they are married. Great and at times hilarious film which also gives an unflinching look at the world of the working, blue-collar class with its attention to their daily activities, relations, circumstances, frustrations, mode of dress, and particularly the vernacular--which can be hard to decipher at times but doesn't take anything away from the film's intensity. If you're an Albert Finney fan or of his style of acting during this period, check out the similarly roguishly handsome Ewan McGregor as his acting is reminiscent of Finney's early work.

Rating:
Summary: The Best British Film Ever
Review: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is one of a group of so called 'kitchen sink dramas' which dominated British cinema in the early sixties. What these films brought to the screen for the first time were realistic portrails of British and in particular English working class life. This to my mind was the golden age of British film making with pictures like, This Sporting Life, Billy Liar, A Kind of Loving, Alfie, Up the Junction and Kess showing ordinary people struggling to make the best of their lot. This mood was also reflected on British TV with shows like Z Cars, Play for Today and even the early Coronation Street.

The best of this genre is Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. One thing most of these films have in common is that the hero trys to escape the limitation of his working class background. In A Kind of Loving the hero escapes into music and the middle class, In Kes, Billy Kasper escapes his hopeless situation by training and flying his hawk. In this film however Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney) sees no point in getting out. All he wants from life is to earn enough money to spend his weekends drinking and chasing women. Not that Arthur is unintelligent he just sees everything in life, politics, ambition and married life as phoney. Arthur wants to remain free of society's demand to comform either to marriage or to moving on and 'bettering himself'

Rachel Roberts and Shirley Ann Fields give great performances as Arthur's love or rather sex interest and Albert Finney is perfect as the cynical Arthur Seaton. The film ends with Arthur accepting marriage to Doreen (Fields) but telling her not to expect him to confirm all the time ( It will not be the last stone I will throw.)

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning captures a certain time and place and for any American viewers who want to know, is it an accurate a portrail of working class sixties England? I can assure them that it is.

Apart from those films about Britain's Asian communities, no British film today shows the British working class with making out that all it contains are thieves, druggies and gangsters.
The only exception being Mike Leigh's work.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a gem. A product of it's time and a piece of social history on a par with Dickens.


Rating:
Summary: yeah it's quite good
Review: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is very good social realist film. Finney is fantastic as rebellious youth Arthur Seaton. Having a sexual relationship with a married woman while also having a girlfriend portrays the sexual liberation of that time. Sex before marriage was becoming more and more common, and this film represents this change in British society. It was a well made film for the time and even today has an appealing quality.

Rating:
Summary: yeah it's quite good
Review: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is very good social realist film. Finney is fantastic as rebellious youth Arthur Seaton. Having a sexual relationship with a married woman while also having a girlfriend portrays the sexual liberation of that time. Sex before marriage was becoming more and more common, and this film represents this change in British society. It was a well made film for the time and even today has an appealing quality.

Rating:
Summary: An unexamined, somewhat empty life
Review: Throughout the 1950s, a group of young British writers were referred to as "angry young men" because, in their novels and plays, they excoriated what they perceived to be the dominant materialistic values of their society following World War Two. They included playwrights John Osborne and Kingsley Amis and novelists John Braine, John Wain, and Alan Silitoe. This film is based on Silitoe's novel (same title) in which he focuses on Arthur Seaton (brilliantly portrayed by Albert Finney) who endures working in a factory all week so that he can afford to drink and chase women on Saturday evening. He lives (if that's the word) day-to-day, insisting "All I want is a good time. The rest is propaganda." Arthur is intelligent enough to know how to indulge his vices but lacks the wisdom to understand that he is drinking and wenching away what few prospects he has to improve his situation. It is unclear (at least to me) whether or not Arthur really wishes to do so. While continuing an affair with Brenda (Rachel Roberts), the bored and restless wife of his friend Bert (Norman Rossington), Albert also becomes involved with Doreen Gretton (Shirley Ann Field) whose own ambitions seem limited to getting married and starting a family. Revealing to me is the fact that neither Arthur nor Brenda seems especially concerned about, much less rebellious against the limits imposed on them within their class-based industrial society.

Suffocation is one of the recurring themes in James Joyce's novels and short stories. I was reminded of that recently as I again observed Arthur's self-indulgent hedonism, indifference to the feelings of others, and callous betrayal of what little he has going for him. Sooner than he realizes, there will be only quiet evenings at home on Saturday. As for his Sundays, perhaps (just perhaps) they will include a moment when he wonders where his youth went as he wearily looks ahead to another dreary week in the local factory. Yes, "the sun also rises...." And then, what will its harsh light reveal?