Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) User Reviews (78)

Working Class Hero

[st-shot · 8/10 · 30 November 2007]

Albert Finney is a rebel without a cause in this Kitchen Sink entry from 1960 that depicts the mind numbing existence of the British factory worker. Seaton is a hard worker but also a smart ass that rubs his work supervisor ( who calls him a Red ) and neighbors the wrong way. He is also sleeping with a co-workers wife.

Albert Finney as the surly Seaton is uncomfortably excellent. His bitter tone and attitude cuts like a power saw. Sooner or later his arrogance will be rewarded and you can't wait. He does display a tender side occasionally with Brenda the married woman but the softness is soon washed away as he rails against the system and his predicament. He is also a world class beer drinker which makes him even more unpleasant as he insults pub patrons and takes a nasty fall down a flight of stairs, only to lie there smiling. Pain is a major source of his existence and rowdy nights out like this serve in a perverse way to blunt it.

Director Karel Reisz moves the storyline along at a rapid pace capturing the grim existence of row house living and deafening factory work. It is a world of gray skies and defeated characters trying to make the best of what they have. They are not the "Happy Breed" of generations past.

Made in the first year of the tumultuous decade that changed the world forever Night is pretty tame by today's standards. But in it's day it was condemned by the Catholic Church for its blatant immorality. One might venture that it had an influence on John Lennon who wrote "Working Class Hero" and on many occasions was witnessed to act like the unctuous Seaton in his life. It might also be argued that Seaton was a prototype for the futuristic angry young man Alex the Droog in Clockwork Orange.

Betty Ann Field, Hylda Baker and Norman Rossington make up a convincing supporting cast in ably assisting Reisz in the world he depicts. Rachel Roberts is outstanding as the tragic Brenda. Smitten with Arthur and doomed by her predicament she perfectly conveys her situation with a tawdry lack of glamor.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning may be an unpleasant film but it is a powerful and important one.

Matching the mood of the times, this film transformed British cinema and was much imitated...

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 7/10 · 6 September 2005]

English history has been full of rebel heroes but the screen tradition really came to fruition during the late Fifties and early Sixties when England's postwar generation was in revolt…

In the theater, this revolt took the form of the "kitchen sink drama" and the era of the Angry Young Men… In the movie industry, it was the era of "Free Cinema," an attempt by young filmmakers to break away from established subjects and standard treatments…

This raw melodrama deals with Arthur Seaton (Finney), a working class young man who rejects the misery and grind of his home and factory, but whose only possible rebellion takes the form of a cynicism towards authority and a cheerful indulgence in sexual encounters with various ladies of the town… His rebellion, though limited, is nevertheless genuine and the film's situation in a working class milieu is, for the habitually middle and upper class conscious British cinema, a much needed step forward...

A classic - but cannot have the impact it once had

[Pedro_H · 8/10 · 4 October 2002]

The movie that made Albert Finney a star cannot, now, be viewed as anything more than an a (UK) cinematic gem in it own glass case. At the time of release it hit the audience like a bomb-shell due to its frank portrayal of life, sex and double standards in the late 50's.

Today some will be puzzled by the dilemmas and themes to the point of "so what?"

Writer Alan Silitoe (from his own novel) quickly draws us in the to real world of a Nottingham factory worker. This is not the factory work of normal movies with the made-up hero having a blob of black stage paint across his forehead; more the dishevelled, sweaty, badly lit world that he knows from first hand experience.

In it we find Finney, smoking and gruff at his lathe. No actor, before him or after has ever made so much of an impression in a mundane situation as the ex-Shakespearen actor does here. Reality comes out of every pore. His matter-of-fact speaking voice, as a voice-over narrator, should not be underrated either - like someone giving testimony partly against their will.

His world of is one of petite rebellion and cheap thrills. The "fighting pit prop that wants a pint of beer." He is immoral and the wife of a friend is seen as fair game: Although the consequences are beyond his immature mind.

There is good supporting performances from British character actors such as Norman Rossington and Hylda Baker, but this movie belongs to one man and one man alone: Sir Albert Finney.

Twenty five years after he is dead the cinematic world is going to wake up and realize how brilliant an actor this man was: Like they did with Humphrey Bogart

The movie that first gave me an impression of 'cinema verite'

[maddoxpt · 10/10 · 16 February 2006]

In 1960, in a small Black Country town, I went to see this movie, with a male friend, at our local fleapit - it was a revelation. I found myself in a cinema that was a real setting for what appeared on the screen, for there Albert Finney was, not represented, was the working class bloke that sat in the picture house near to me.

Equally I knew that, on leaving, I would see his aunt (Hilda Baker) in the local chippy, and that Norman Rossington would be cycling to some nearby canal to fish. Indeed when Ben (my friend) and I left we went to our local for a quick pint and, I swear,we both had the uncanny feeling of being part of the film.

Time has passed and the working class East and West Midlands have change completely so it may not have such resonance for a new generation but if you want to know what a good slice of England looked and sounded like in the 1950s you should see it: it's better than any documentary. Indeed it is a great film.

best of the "angry young man" movies

[mike n · 10/10 · 29 January 2001]

I first saw this film during its original u.s. run in 1961, loved it, and jumped at the chance to see it again at a local revival movie house. The movie is justly famous for Finney's brilliant performance (I think it was his first.), but has other virtues as well. Karel Reisz and Freddie Francis succeed in making the film visually interesting, and it is well paced, with essentially no dead time.

The thing that deserves the most praise, however, is Sillitoe's script, which puts virtually all modern dramatic screenplays to shame. In a general way, the working class british films of the late 50s and 60s launched the tradition that leads to Loach, Leigh, Tim Roth, etc. This film's subtlety and ambivalence towards its leading character reminds me specifically of Mike Leigh at his very best.

A grim and gritty slice of working class life

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 25 April 2017]

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is another of the 'kitchen sink' dramas that were all the rage at the turn of the 1960s, and it's also an 'angry young man' film to boot. Albert Finney takes the lead role of a maladjusted young bloke who's got two women on the go at the same time; one of them is an older unhappily married woman and the other is more his age. There are definite shades of ROOM AT THE TOP in this premise but the film has a character all of its own.

I find films like this invaluable these days for their insight into working class life during the era. A grimy and industrial Nottingham is brought to vibrant life here and if Finney isn't a very likable character at all then at least he's thoroughly entertaining throughout. A decent supporting cast keep the atmosphere of realism going, and the production has a good sense of pace. I found the ending a little lacklustre but otherwise this is decent stuff.

The Two Up, Two Down Trap...

[Xstal · 8/10 · 26 January 2023]

There's a rather angry lad by name of Arthur, spends the week in factory, and he's a grafter, but at the weekend he goes out, drinking beer, he likes to shout, casts his eye over the women that he's after. One such lass, is married to, the workshop Forman, Brenda entertains Arthur like he's her old man, then she brings up in discussion, that she has a bun in t'oven, both their futures not what either of them planned. But Arthur's got another girl in tow, Doreen's taken quite a shine, and lets him know, then he suffers a tough beating, for all the lying and the cheating, and life goes on, because there's nowt else you can do (duck).

It's hard work growing up, it always was, and it always will be.

Attitude Readjustment

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 28 October 2013]

Albert Finney gives a breakout performance in Saturday Night And Sunday Morning which launched him into stardom. But as for Great Britain's angry young men I much prefer Richard Burton in Look Back In Anger. But I will say it is certainly a tribute to Finney as an actor and to his charisma that he kept the audiences interested in such a lout of a character that he portrayed.

Burton's Jimmy Porter was a lout himself, but someone capable of looking at the wider world and caring about it. His best scene in Look Back In Anger was him standing up to the market supervisor on behalf of an Indian merchant who was being discriminated against.

But our protagonist Arthur Seaton could give less of an atom of human waste product about the wider world. He's stuck in a dull factory job and takes it out on the world. He lives only for the weekend when he's out carousing with his mates at the local pub and carousing with Rachel Roberts who is married to one of his supervisors at the job.

Things change a bit when Finney meets up with Shirley Anne Field who's a pretty young thing and doesn't have an inconvenient husband around. He's keeping them both, but then Roberts gets inconveniently pregnant by Finney.

There's some indication in the end that Finney might readjust his attitude on life in general and the opposite sex in particular under the tutelage of Field. Still I really haven't much hope for him.

Rachel Roberts turns in a fine performance as a woman used and abused by a truly sexy lout of a man. And Finney despite the repellent nature of his character will keep you glued to the big screen or small.

Albert Finney's star-making role

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 13 July 2008]

Albert Finney is Arthur, a working-class Brit who lives for "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" in this 1960 film also starring Rachel Roberts, Hylda Baker and Shirley Anne Field. It's impossible to believe that Albert Finney was ever that young, but he was - 24 in this film - robust and handsome. He plays a factory worker who hates his job and lives with his family. His life revolves around his weekends, when he drinks himself into oblivion and sees his married girlfriend Brenda (Roberts). Roberts is married to one of his co-workers. One day, he meets the beautiful Doreen (Shirly Anne Field) and starts to court her. Then Brenda becomes pregnant with his child.

This film was considered quite shocking at the time of its release because of its frank sexual situations and the freely-discussed topic of abortion. These themes aren't shocking anymore, but one reason for that is the introduction of them in films like this. Shot in black and white, it gives the viewer a picture of life in a bleak factory town, portrayed very realistically by director Karl Reisz. The actors are these people, they're not merely playing them. This is especially true of Finney, who sports a low-class accent and epitomizes the "angry young man" so prevalent in the late '50s. Finney's performance as a young man who takes out his work-week aggression on women, booze and mischief, is as revolutionary as Dean's or Brando's was in American cinema.

Finney is ably backed up by the supporting actors. Roberts is very effective as Brenda, a housewife married to a dull man, and Shirley Anne Field even dressed down is gorgeous as the ingénue who wins Arthur's heart and makes him look at the future. One wonders if he'll ever grow up sufficiently. She's going to have her hands full.

The dialect is very authentic and difficult to understand at times - I actually used my closed captioning. The dialect adds to the whole atmosphere of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning," another of the rebel movies but in a class all by itself.

A Great Kitchen Sink Drama!

[ericredfearn · 15 April 2001]

This is the film which made Albert Finney a star. Filmed on location at Nottingham, Albert Finney plays Arthur Seaton a bored factory worker who is having an affair with his workmate's wife (Rachel Roberts). Controversial at the time because of its references to abortion, this film gives an idea of what life was like amongst the working classes during the 1950s. Shirley Anne Field also made her name in this film, but she never really fulfilled her potential as an actress. A well acted and produced gritty drama which is still watchable today.

Not Conforming To Expectations

[slokes · 7/10 · 13 June 2014]

Meeting an attractive young woman in a bar, Arthur Seaton wastes no time making his play. He asks her name, and is told with some embarrassment it's Doreen. She doesn't like her name. He doesn't like his, either.

"Neither of 'em's up to much, but it ain't our fault," he tells her. Like everything else in his unhappy life, it's all a matter of inheritance.

Arthur may share a name with a heroic English king, but he's not one to wear his lower-middle-class crown agreeably. He drinks away his wages, lashes out at defenseless women, and lies with discomfiting ease. But Albert Finney and the filmmakers make sure you care about him anyway.

As Seaton, Finney glowers a lot in the way you expect from a protagonist in a kitchen-sink drama, a celebrated product of British New Wave cinema. But the film plays with your expectations just as life does his. He doesn't want to settle for life as he finds it, and while "Saturday Night And Sunday Morning," Alan Sillitoe's adaptation of his own novel directed by Karel Reisz, spits a lot in the direction of conformity, it belies its angry-young-man pedigree with a sense of cosmic acceptance at taking what life has to offer.

Seaton's a "madhead," make no mistake. But he's not an especially honest one. He lies impulsively, often to no purpose, and is even proud of it. "I always was a liar, a good one and all," he tells the married woman he sleeps with, Brenda (Rachel Roberts). Ironically, it's his one honest moment on her behalf that lands him in real trouble.

The film gives us other hints Seaton is not an admirable figure, like shooting an annoying neighbor with an air rifle in a manner that comes off more creepy than defiant. A "working-class anti-hero," as other reviewers put it, and the real craft in both the direction and in Finney's performance is how it accomplishes the balancing act of establishing Seaton as both miserable company and a rooting interest.

It's a well-structured film, too, a quick 90 minutes that breaks neatly into thirty minutes of establishing the situation, thirty minutes of developing a crisis (Seaton stringing along two women, one pregnant), and thirty minutes of tense resolution. At the same time, Reisz gives his film a grimy authenticity that feels real, never stagy, with scenes that have a real lived-in quality while serving the larger story.

"Saturday Night And Sunday Morning" is a bleak film in many ways, not pleasant to watch. Laughs and insights are minimal, and Finney downplays his considerable screen charm. There are hardly any toothy grins like he'd bestow on his later breakout role, as the title character in "Tom Jones." The handling of his relationship with Doreen is a trifle pat, and too-simply resolved. So is the issue of his relationship with Brenda, although Finney shares a good final scene with her character's husband, played effectively by Stephen Fry lookalike Bryan Pringle.

There are a lot of good performances in this film, which blend together to create an effective if routine story. If it's not what you expect from angry-young-man cinema, it's nice to have your expectations batted down now and then.

Albert Finney, RIP

[lee_eisenberg · 9/10 · 9 April 2019]

What once was shocking is now so tame. I don't know if that was ever a quote or official concept - unless you count the Parable of the Leopards - but it describes the plot of Karel Reisz's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning". This is one of the many British movies from the early '60s focusing on the working class, with an angry young man as the protagonist; these were known as kitchen sink dramas.

The movie opens with an announcement from the British Board of Censorship that no one under the age of 16 will be allowed to see the movie (the same message opened Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita"). The subject matter was extramarital sex, and in some scenes, the characters debate whether or not to "have" the baby (I guess that they weren't actually allowed to say abortion). This plus usages of what was considered profanity at the time essentially got the movie the 1960 equivalent of an R rating (by today's standards it's PG).

In the end, the movie does a good job hinting at the day-to-day lives of the UK's working class, as the protagonist (Albert Finney in his star-making role) toils away as a machinist during the day and lives a carefree life outside of that (kind of like John Travolta's character in a different Saturday-titled movie). I recommend it.

Nice film for an afternoon

[shes_dead · 7/10 · 12 February 2006]

As James Dean imitated Brando, so it would appear Malcolm McDowell imitated Albert Finney. At least, McDowell's performance in A Clockwork Oragne owes a lot to Finney in this. Both characters are undeniably cocky and brimming with confidence and contempt, and both are highly entertaining!

While not much of a story to write home about - I believe this is considered one of those 1960's British 'kitchen sink' drama's - this is however captivating.

Finney plays a working class lout, tired of his factory job and always hoping for more, he goes about his business without care for any consequences. He swaggers around as if untouchable but soon gets his comeuppance when he is beaten by two army cadets, one of which is the brother of the husband of the woman he is sleeping with, who he has now got pregnant! But he is eventually tamed by the gorgeous Shirley Anne Field.

While I'm no expert at this genre, I can see it's similarity to Ken Loach films and somewhat akin to (through it's simplicity) David Lean's 'Brief Encounter', though not as extravagant.

A nice afternoon film with philosophies that still ring true today ("Whatever they say I am , that's what I'm not." Arctic Monkeys anyone?). Even if you don't like the story you'll be in awe of Finney's cock-sure performance.

It's grim up north and east too!

[adamjohns-42575 · 1/10 · 6 August 2021]

I've been let down by the BFI (British Film Institute)'s top 100 British films list once again.

The film showed great promise to start with interesting characters and locations and even dear old Albert Finney could be described as handsome, but I struggle to see the point of the film at all. It really didn't go anywhere. The only issue that occurs wasn't made enough fuss of, so it just ambles along.

Albert's character is actually quite obnoxious and not someone you can get behind as a viewer. Perhaps he was more recognisable by the audience of the 60's, but I think the situation was probably the easier element to connect with.

I'm sure that it's meant to be a snapshot of life in a factory during the sixties, but it was just a bit boring for me and my dear mum, who also wasn't impressed. And she saw it the first time around.

It bears some strong similarities to Ealing's 'Billy Liar' (1963) but without the few funny bits.

I have to wonder what the people at the BFI look for in a film, because quite frankly, I've seen better 'Carry On' and made for tv films than some of the ones they've chosen for this list.

084.05/1000.

Watch again and again and again....

[leighinstoke · 10/10 · 18 September 2003]

This is one of those types of films that actually lets you forget who the big stars in it really are (a young Albert Finney) - and just lets you enjoy the film for what it is - a classic and gritty British film. I've watched it over and over and seen it again today - and forgot how good - and funny in places it really is.

Director Karel Reisz used his skills perfectly in this - he took places lit and furnished as he found them, let people naturally perform and simply laced together a piece of cinematographic brilliance.

People forget that he also directed such films as The French Lieutenants Woman and produced This Sporting Life, but I personally feel this masterpiece, amongst his early and sadly rare work was the best by far.

If you've not seen this film and claim to be a fan of 1960s British Cinema, you'd better get it into your collection and view it very soon - be prepared for some smiles, some laughs, some hard scenes but, overall, a treat.

Enjoy!

Whatever people say I am, that's what I am not

[JamesHitchcock · 8/10 · 24 October 2013]

Alan Sillitoe was one of a number of young writers who emerged in the late fifties and sixties and who have become known as the "kitchen sink" school. (Other members of the group included the novelists Stan Barstow, John Braine, David Storey and Barry Hines and playwrights such as John Osborne and Shelagh Delaney). Their work was distinguished by a social- realist concentration on working-class life, often with a provincial setting.

Sillitoe's first novel "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" had an immediate impact when first published in 1958 and is still regarded today as one of the key texts of the "kitchen sink" movement. As with a number of other "kitchen sink" works such as Osborne's "Look Back in Anger", Braine's "Room at the Top", Delaney's "A Taste of Honey" and Barstow's "A Kind of Loving", the British cinema, which was going through a similar social-realist phase at the time, was quick to adapt the novel for the screen.

Both book and film are set in the author's native Nottingham and tell the story of Arthur Seaton, a young worker in a bicycle factory. In many ways Arthur is not a particularly admirable character. He is a heavy drinker and a womaniser who is conducting an affair with Brenda, the wife of a colleague at work. His relationship with Brenda, however, does not prevent him from courting a young single woman named Doreen. Yet in Arthur's own words (a quote later made famous by the Arctic Monkeys) "whatever people say I am, that's what I am not". It would be too easy to dismiss him simply as a drunken, rebellious troublemaker.

Unlike his father, who was frequently unemployed during the depression of the thirties, Arthur is fortunate enough to have come into manhood at a time of economic prosperity, a time when Britons were being assured by their Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, that they had "never had it so good", and is able to earn a reasonable wage by working hard. And yet, in Sillitoe's view, "never had it so good" was still not good enough. One of the themes of the novel is the way in which the class divisions of pre-war Britain still persisted despite the post-war economic boom. Arthur is not only angry with the "System" but also with his parents' generation, whom he sees as conformists, "dead from the neck up". He is clearly intelligent and articulate, yet has only received a basic formal education and is unable to find anything other than mundane and repetitive factory work. His anger and resentment may stem from frustration at being unable to put his intelligence to more creative use.

Sillitoe also wrote the screenplay for this film, and simplifies his story somewhat. For example, he omits Arthur's affair with another married lover, Brenda's sister Winnie this detail from the film. Shirley Anne Field as Doreen is rather older and more experienced that the innocent teenager of the novel. On the whole, however, the film remains faithful to the themes of the book.

This was the first feature film directed by Karel Reisz, a Czech refugee to Britain from Nazism, who had earlier been one of the founders of the Free Cinema documentary movement. Two of his co-founders, Tony Richardson and Lindsay Anderson, also went on to work in the "kitchen sink" style; Richardson's work in the genre includes "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", also based on a story by Sillitoe, and Anderson's includes "This Sporting Life" which also stars Rachel Roberts, who plays Brenda here. The influence of Reisz's career as a documentary film-maker is evident in his use of genuine Nottingham locations, especially the scenes set in the bicycle factory which have a very "documentary" feel to them. Another influence is visible in the scene at the funfair where Arthur is trapped on a merry-go-round by Brenda's husband Jack, who has discovered her affair with Arthur, and two soldier friends; the menace in this scene recalls the work of Alfred Hitchcock, who also set a key scene on a merry-go-round in "Strangers on a Train".

In the early sixties Albert Finney was one of the rising young stars of the British acting profession, and this was his second film. (The first was Richardson's "The Entertainer", also from 1960). Although he was only 24 he gives a very assured performance here, bringing out Arthur's intelligence as well as his feral, rebellious streak. This is probably a better performance than Finney's next one in "Tom Jones" which was to win him the first of his five Oscar nominations, but he was never going to be nominated here. British social-realism never found much favour with the Academy who probably found it too depressing and (an even greater sin in American eyes) too left-wing. There are also some good contributions from the supporting cast, too many to single them all out but Roberts particularly stands out. Brenda is married to an older man whom she does not love, and in love with a younger one who only uses her for sex. In the earlier scenes she seems hard and brassy, but is tragic and pitiable in the later ones after she finds out she is pregnant by Arthur who she knows will abandon her.

Kitchen-sink realism was a fairly short-lived phenomenon; a few good examples were made in colour in the late sixties ("Alfie", "Kes", "Up the Junction", "Spring and Port Wine"), but it largely died out in the seventies, although occasional attempts have been made to revive it. The finest of the genre, however, have survived to become classics of the British cinema, and along with the likes of "A Kind of Loving" and "A Taste of Honey" "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" is among the foremost of these. 8/10

A different world

[DC1977 · 5 April 2003]

Its amazing to look at this film which transformed British Cinema and introduced the angry young man that would later been seen in films like 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' and 'This Sporting Life'.

The fact that it shocked audiences and local authorities because of its themes covering sex and abortion show that this was a time when a great deal of change was taking place in British society. Although I wasn't around then, things must have been changing very rapidly as six years later 'Alfie' was able to confront these issues full on whereas Karel Reisz's film merely hints at them.

This film also established Albert Finney as a national star and he was soon to become an international star with the wonderfully bawdy 'Tom Jones'. Its always interesting to see the films that established the actors we admire and I'm certainly a fan of Albert Finney so I was shocked when I saw this film and felt that he wasn't really very good in it.

The opening scene where his character, Arthur Seaton, is counting the parts he is making in his factory seemed to introduce a highly overwrought man that shouted all the time. Thankfully the unnecessary 'anger' at the start was toned down later but I still felt at the end that Finney could have done greater justice to his role.

Walking around with a straight back and his chest out, talking twice as loud as he needs to seemed to resemble an angry old man rather than an angry young man and I almost expected him to talk about how kids nowadays didn't know they were born.

Its unusual that an actor from a working class background didn't convince me when playing a character that was not that dissimilar from himself whilst actors like Tom Courtenay in 'Loneliness...' and particularly Richard Harris in 'This Sporting Life' did it much better.

However, I gradually found myself being more and more absorbed in this film as it started to develop a storyline and move away from a young man being angry simply for the sake of it.

Rachel Roberts excels in her role as the married woman who becomes pregnant by Seaton and its a shame that this actress has been forgotten when you consider her performance here and the marvellous one she gave opposite Harris in 'This Sporting Life'.

Shirley Anne Field also does well as Doreen the girl looking to settle down and it is in her relationship with Seaton where I disagree with many people's assessment of the film.

Its generally said that Seaton hates the idea of conformity but in the end accepts it. However I feel that the film is much more hopeful than that as he realises that love and marriage is not necessarily a trap that only fools rush into and that there is much more to conventional life than he had originally anticipated.

A Notable Portrayal of "The Angry Young Man"

[atlasmb · 7/10 · 28 July 2014]

I have a feeling this film might be judged differently by Brits. Americans have to slog through the rather dense colloquialisms and accent to understand the main character, in particular.

When they do, they find that Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney) is something of an anti-hero. Brando's character in "The Wild Bunch" famously said, when asked what he was rebelling against: "Whatta ya got?" Arthur is pretty much cut from the same cloth, though he doesn't go as far out of his way to offend the establishment. He is more of a libertarian who wants to be left alone to live by his own rules. He is also very selfish in the negative sense. He cares little for the feelings of others, even those he cares about. He is driven without any idea where he is headed.

The acting in "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" is quite good. All of the characterizations are strong.

Opinions of posters here disagree about the ending. Has Arthur changed or not? Throughout the film, there are a few projectiles launched in rebellion. At the end of the film, Arthur throws a rock at a new house. When his girlfriend scolds him, he says, "It won't be the last one I throw." Clearly, he maintains his attitude toward the world and its conformist rules. The lack of a personal arc is a little disappointing, but the character rings true.

The last spurt of freedom and fun before a finishing line called marriage...

[ElMaruecan82 · 9/10 · 17 April 2021]

I often joked that a proper continuation to "Saturday Night Fever" was "Sunday Morning Hangover", taking the h-word in its real or figurative meaning. But here is a movie that shares two words with the disco classic and mentions the inevitable aftermath of these turbulent nights. This film is Karel Reisz's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning": there's not much dancing in this one, there's no iconic suit but there's that feverish spirit of a blue-collar youth that waits for Friday night to finally loosen up after a week of factory and its symphony of clinging machinery... with the same rituals, getting your best suit, spotting the prettiest gal, getting a date and a second... and the same testosterone-driven appetites that aren't without dramatic consequences. Hence the "Sunday morning", and its unspoken subtitle: what goes around comes around.

Arthur Seaton is the leading young lad, he's got rugged looks, the insolence and vigor of a guy at the top of his form, who doesn't let TV suck the spirit out of him as it did for his Dad whose dull gaze toward the TV speaks thousand words. He's played by Arthur Finney in his breakthrough role and this is a tour de force performance that never feels like acting, the man simply acts his age and embodies its insouciance and devil-may-care spirit. That's a generation that didn't fight during the war, that went through poverty but takes a substantial benefit from the industrial recovery: work, wages, financial independence. This is the same 60s Ken Loach would later paint in the masterpiece "Kes", the education isn't that much, but for as long as there are jobs, men can have the fun they want while remaining on the prowl... till the 'right one' shows her pretty head.

Arthur's life is made of that: all work on weekdays, we first see him manipulating his lathe and rampaging against the submissive workers like Jack (Bryan Pringle) and the petty foreman Robboe (Robert Cawdron), then pubs and fun on Fridays and Saturdays, with his cousin Bert (Norman Rossington) and eventually some fishing on Sundays. He's having an affair with Jack's wife Brenda (Rachel Roberts) and the plot thickens when he catches the beautiful Doreen (Shirley Ann Field) on a Sunday morning. Now, "Room at the Top" was the first British film to deal explicitly with infidelity but it was slightly different: the woman was living an unhappy marriage, what's more with a cheater, and the actress Simone Signoret, as well as her character, was French, which could content the Legion of Decency.

This time Brenda is British, she's cheating on her boy's father, and we see the two lovers in bed, and Reisz should be saluted for his bravado: he threw a stone in the water and transcended the love triangle trope by showing the truth in its naked vulnerability. Both Finney and Roberts share the same bed, leaving no doubt over their occupations. Later when she reveals her pregnancy, we realize that Karel Reizs wasn't ready to sugarcoat the material from Alan Sillitoes' novel, nor to over-dramatize it. Rachel Roberts is the perfect match to Finney, she doesn't play a depraved woman but one with dignity who blames her lover yet the material never falls in the melodramatic trap, keeping in tune with its realistic tone. For all its realism, "Room at the Top" was a morality tale, in this film, we're not put in a position to judge the characters or expect a Karmic ending because life doesn't work that way.

The two segments of the love triangle never really converge, but they ironically allow Arthur to get away with his actions; when he meets Doreen, he doesn't play the big game, knowing that he's got a woman to satisfy his lower needs. By not overplaying the needy card, he looks strangely more attractive, and the more trouble he gets into, the closer it takes him to Doreen. He does end up having his comeuppance, fittingly coming from two clean-cut soldiers, the symbol is eloquent. Still, this is not a film caring about narrative conventions, this is a historical piece of British cinema, the first tides of the New Wave of what would later called as 'kitchen sink' realism. Like "400 Blows" or "Breathless", the film deals with youth and their struggle to adapt to a world where freedom is counted in years. Because beyond the friendship, the romance, and the consequences, there's the urgency of commitment.

"Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" shows you the reality of the working class, there's a documentary-like precision in its depiction of the factory and the interactions within employees, you have typical need to go to the pub where formal clothes for once made the classes disappear. Finney is such a presence that he carries the whole film with his broad and robust shoulders, charismatic, naughty and charming, being a presence to count on. Watching him flirting, being angry, playing with kids and tormenting his nemesis, Mrs. Bull (Edna Morris) gives the film an aura of authenticity and entertainment. You could watch the film for the historical aspect, for its groundbreaking nature but also the performance of Finney that sets all the common patterns of a famous British trope: the angry young man.

Behind that that anger, there's a social comment on masculinity during the post-war economical boom, where boys were boys and learned to be men in the short span given to them before they could become husbands and fathers. "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" is like the last spurt of freedom and independence before the finishing line which is marriage. Arthur doesn't get away with his wrong doings because he's the protagonist but simply because his experience is the schematic pattern of many boys his age, again, this is no morality play, this is modern film-making and a British little revolution carried by the charismatic personality of Sir Finney.

gutsy, still raw, still works

[dartleyk · 7/10 · 22 October 2013]

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

Albert Finney bragging and lying his way in life saved by Shirley Anne Field

[clanciai · 9/10 · 27 September 2018]

Superb actors and impressing photography and direction is not enough to raise this film from its deplorable story and terrible environment, style and commonplace vulgarity, where men duel by drinking beer, have love affairs with married women and make them pregnant, live by constant lies and shoot at old bag ladies with air guns. It's a great and masterful film but can't hide its dominant element of bitterness. Karel Reisz would later on make an even worse film with Albert Finney as a psychotic murderer which is equally good but even more revolting, leaving a bitter aftertaste that's difficult to shake off. The industrial chimneys, a working-place of only noise, fisticuffs at night and getting drunk constitutes the total reality of this masterpiece of humdrum banality. Still, it has its moments.

Angry young bloke comes of age...

[moonspinner55 · 7/10 · 23 November 2011]

Atmospheric, startlingly mature adaptation of Alan Sillitoe's novel (by the author) regarding Arthur Seaton, a 20-ish working-class Brit employed at the local factory and still living at home, who is 'knocking about' with a co-worker's wife while despairing against marriage (and the TV-watching rut his parents have slipped into). Just as he begins courting a local lovely with mother-troubles of her own, he finds out his married playmate is pregnant. Prickly film has fine moments of both tension and schoolboy humor, propelled by Albert Finney's flawless central performance. Highly-influential in its time, and still powerful today, the picture employs a confrontational tone with acerbic dialogue, never lapsing into fake pathos or dreary ruminations. It is ripe and alert and alive. *** from ****

A Good Character Study and Social Commentary

[robsta23 · 8/10 · 30 January 2016]

"Don't let the b******s grind you down!" The words which Arthur, the protagonist of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, lives by. It is a powerful voice-over narration by Albert Finney which begins the film and introduces who his character is. The only problem is, he does not explain that this life motto - at least for him - means constant lying and a lack of consideration for women.

We know from the get-go that Arthur is all about rebellion, specifically against his elders and their sense of tradition and manners; this is why he lacks any. He is also not the brightest star in the sky, letting his alcoholism (which he denies) get the best of him early on in the story.

Arthur dreams big though. There is a great scene when he is fishing with his cousin talking about a new girl in his life Doreen, when he states "never bite unless the bait's good." If this is another part of his philosophy on life, it is curious as to why he goes for the older, married woman Brenda early on in the film. Perhaps he is learning since his relationship with Brenda comes back to bite him later in the story.

With scenes of Arthur working at the factory, this becomes a commentary on the working class in England, but the commentary is slightly confusing. A young working man is susceptible to fall into a lifestyle including womanizing and living life to one's own terms, yet other characters who are nothing like him work with Arthur at the factory as well. In fact, Brenda's husband works at the same factory and from what we see of him he is a loving father and generally caring person. Perhaps, then, this film is a commentary on the young adult in England rather than the entire working class.

This is clearly a "rebellion" movie which gets its point across with some strong voice-over work by Albert Finney, and while the acting is great and Arthur is a well-developed, detestable person, at some points the audience can't help but ask "so what?"

3.0/4.0

British New Wave pioneer Karel Reisz's debut feature

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 6 December 2016]

On paper, Arthur Seaton (Finney) seems to be the trans-Atlantic cousin of James Dean's Jim Stark in Nocholas Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, he is a disgruntled Nottingham youth slogs away in the lathe unit on week-days, and finds solace in petticoat company in after-work hours (especially the slot which the movie's title indicates), but essentially his life is stuck in a rut, aimless, monotonous and painfully prosaic, but he has to abide by.

British New Wave pioneer Karel Reisz's debut feature, a working-class kitchen-sink melodrama headlined by an exuberant 23-year-old Albert Finney in his very first star-making leading role. Arthur partakes in a love affair with Brenda (Roberts), the wife of his co-worker Jack (Pringle), there is no compunction in their way since Brenda believes what they have is love, but, for Arthur, one might think it is the thrill of their trysts keeps him hooked, because apparently this is the only exciting happening amongst the quotidian drabness.

Then, he meets Doreen (Field), a comely beauty, seems a shade prim and proper, but she is available, maybe, even a marriage material for him. Arthur ambidextrously seesaws between adultery and romantic courtship, and rests assured that there would be no moral agony and ulterior motive behind, not like George Stevens' A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951), there is no social climbing or great fortune at stake. Plus, Arthur is a self-acclaimed, superb liar, he is cocksure that nothing can take him down, even when Brenda tells him she is pregnant with his child. Alan Sillitoe's script supplies the narrative with very realistic spins and trenchant attitudes, not at all consciously righteous, but they are an encapsulation of its times, the pervading ennui which in retrospect devours an entire youth generation in UK's industrialized era.

Arthur would be sucker-punched for sleeping with another man's wife, but is he rueful afterwards? He can take a beat once in a while, a burly lad like that, but he will never change who he is, a good- looking reprobate has nothing to lose and nothing to hold dear, not even Doreen, she is too simple- minded to see through his macho charisma or maybe she is just a sucker for the sort. They will get married, as the film implies in the end, but felicity will plausibly keep eluding them. That's what a first-viewing of this picture feels smarting, as impressively effervescent as Finney's first-grade performance is, eventually the film comes off as a rather unfulfilled downer, our sympathy towards Arthur dissipates easily and emotional distance looms large.

On the subject of the supporting cast, Shirley Anne Field is well-chosen in magnifying Doreen's glacial front against her pedestrian persona; Bryan Pringle contrives an understated but greatly ambivalent facade as the cuckolded husband. And Rachel Roberts is outstanding in a role diametrically dissimilar from another British New Wave hallmark she stars, Lindsay Anderson's THIS SPORTING LIFE (1963), it is not that often audience would give a free pass to an adulteress, but here, she imprints both body and soul of an entrapped woman who neither minces words about what she wants nor overstays her welcome when she feels that a closure is inevitable.

While on the technical level, Karel Reisz's debut rams home the intimacy between his characters and their environs, a well-presented correlation between its sharp Black-and-White cinematography and its visual spectacle, it doesn't transpire to be a killing character study which can offer us something stimulating to chew on, other than its astute discernment of the acclimated torpor, which is so un-cinematically dispiriting.

An Arrogant and Reckless Young Man Meets His Match

[Uriah43 · 5/10 · 10 May 2021]

"Arthur Seaton" (Albert Finney) is an arrogant and reckless young man who works in a factory and has little regard for anybody but himself. In short, he's not a very likeable person. To that extent, he not only lives with his parents but also has a complete disdain for marriage and essentially lives for the weekend. So when he's not getting drunk with what few friends he has he's spending the rest of his time with a married woman named "Brenda" (Rachel Roberts) whose husband "Jack" (Bryan Pringle) works with him. Then, to make matters even more complicated, one day Arthur meets an attractive young woman by the name of "Doreen" (Shirley Ann Field) and things quickly spiral out of control from that point on. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an okay film for the most part but in all honesty, since I didn't care much for any of the characters, it was difficult for me to really enjoy this film to any great degree and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.