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 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

British New Wave director and producer Karel Reisz' feature film debut, one of the earliest films from the kitchen sink realism movement, is an adaptation of the first novel by English writer Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010) from 1958. It tells the story about Arthur Steaton, a confident, charming and indignant young man who looks forward to every weekend when he can go out and have fun with women and his friends on the local pub. Arthur works at a factory operating on machines and lives a rather quiet life with his parents in Nottingham, England, but he has gotten himself involved in a secret relationship with a married woman named Brenda whom he has strong feelings for.This engagingly directed British production which was produced by director Tony Richardson (1928-1991) and Canadian producer Harry Saltzman (1915-1994) and shot on location in Nottingham and London in England, is a well-paced character-driven and dialog-driven romantic drama with acute portrayals of young love, interpersonal relations and everyday life. With his first feature film from 1960, Czech-born filmmaker Karel Reisz (1926-2002) creates exceptionally realistic milieu depictions of industrial working-class England during the early nineteen sixties and an accomplished study of character about a young man who keeps getting himself into trouble for acting on his strong opposition against a system which he thinks is suppressing the working-class and has left their evident mark on his parents.The prominent and heartened acting performance by English actor Albert Finney and the significant and understated acting performances by Welsh actress Rachel Roberts (1927-1980) and British actress Shirley Anne Field underlines the power of this unsentimental, humorous and gripping independent film which gained BAFTA Awards for Best British Film, Best British Actress Rachel Roberts and Most Promising Newcomer Albert Finney in 1961. The cheerful score and the great black-and-white cinematography by English cinematographer and director Freddie Francis emphasizes the poignant atmosphere in this ardent piece of social realism.