Too much of everything

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

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.

The film is about working-class alienation; end of.It portrays this brilliantly in the dismal Nottingham factory setting- day after day- in a world where you have one night to put on your teddy boy suit and winkle pickers, and numb yourself stupid with alcohol (and a loose and desperate colleague's wife)- before returning to the grime of your lathe, and another 1000 bolts to make before clock-off.Finney gives a gritty performance in this monochrome time-capsule of a movie; truly shocking and immoral at the time, but nevertheless timelessly relevant to every person who truly detests the capitalist system and those who perpetuate it.A work of sociological art.

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

You could say that this movie is being more of a low-key and black & white version of the Michael Caine movie "Alfie". It handles basically all of the same themes and even the main character is comparable (actress Shirley Anne Field is also in both movies by the way). But by saying this I'm not claiming "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" is a bad or unoriginal movie. On the contrary really!It's a special little movie, that is being simplistic and minimal in every way. Perhaps somewhat inspired by the more European movies from France and Italy, that are being like a random slice of life and follow one main character who goes by his life on his very own way but not without paying the price for it. Yes, it's a drama but it is being one that is very realistic with its approach, events, characters and emotions.I think it helped this movie that it had a fresh director at the helm. Czechoslovakian born Karel Reisz had shot some documentaries in the past but this movie was his first ever attempt at directing a motion picture. It shows but in a very refreshing way. He approaches some crucial sequences brilliantly, which also provides the movie with some powerful, effective but also beautiful looking moments.I'll admit that I only knew and had seen actor Albert Finney as an old man and in his newer movies. Even though I have always liked him a lot, I never seen any early movies with him, till this one. It's great to see him as a young 24 year old in this movie, playing a typical rebellious, post-WW II, British young bloke, who is working hard and enjoying his free time with chasing down women. It's funny how not much later after this movie he started playing old men already, that's why you probably will also have some difficulties recognizing him in this movie. You will probably recognize his voice before you'll recognize his face.This are the type of movies I often like watching and this movie is one fine genre example!8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/