ThiefHott Too much of everything

Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Jack Hawkins (Hawkensian) Albert Finney drives this film with his brilliant performance as Arthur Seaton, an angry young factory worker from Nottingham who lives for the weekend.His infectious appetite for trouble has developed a reputation for being a rogue in the terraces and ginnels of his neighbourhood. He likes the ladies, and although there are plenty of single women out there for him, he chooses to sleep with Brenda (Rachel Roberts), the wife of his workmate Jack (Bryan Pringle). A scene early in the film shows Arthur gleefully finishing breakfast at Brenda's house when Jack is moments away from walking through the door. Arthur deliberately takes his time in escaping, relishing the close shave.Opinionated and disaffected, Arthur enjoys regular rants with his close friend Bert (Norman Rossington) about the banality of the quiet life and how he has 'fight' in him. Although he dislikes authority figures and the local old bag who pokes her nose in everyone's business, the enemy that he's fighting isn't a human, his enemy is conformity, the prospect of settling down and facing the daily grind makes him very anxious and fiery indeed.This leads to an awful lot of troublemaking, which can be very funny. In one moment he loads his rudimentary pellet gun, quietly opens a window and shoots Mrs. Bull (Edna Morris), the aforementioned nosey cow, in her fat backside whilst she gossips. I laughed excitedly like a naughty adolescent as if I was really with Arthur, frightened of what the petty old hag was going to do. Inevitably, Arthur treads on some toes and he doesn't always get away scot free, the gravest example of this being a fight scene that, unsurprisingly, is very dated. However, Arthur isn't bothered by a tough fight, 'It's not the first time I've been in a losing fight, won't be the last either I don't spose… I'm a fighting pit prop who wants a pint of bitter, that's me.' During a fishing trip, his friend Bert asks the ranting Arthur 'Where does all this fighting get you?' It's an important question and I don't think Arthur is sure of the answer.Arthur knows that he's following the same well-trodden path as all the old farts around him and it seems he has an existential crisis every time he considers it, but he'll probably soon mellow and learn to, in the words of Bert, 'go on working and hope something good'll turn up.' Either that or move away and do something completely different, something that breaks away from his area's cyclical nature that he detests so much.Unlike so many romantic dramas and especially comedies, the film has a romance that you genuinely care about. Arthur meets the lovely Doreen (Shirley Anne Field), a beautiful, measured and reserved woman who keeps Arthur's charm at bay, which entices him even further. You hope that the angsty, impetuous Arthur won't squander his chances of a good relationship with a good woman.Saturday Night, Sunday Morning is a epochal piece of realist British cinema that remains resonant and largely undated.85%www.hawkensian.com

bkoganbing 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.

moonspinner55 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 ****

BJJManchester "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.