lasttimeisaw 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.

Bill Slocum 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.

dartleyk 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

Boba_Fett1138 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/