Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.