World Famous Comics: Saturday Night And Sunday Morning
Saturday Night And Sunday Morning
Starring: Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field, Rachel Roberts, Hylda Baker, Norman Rossington Directed By: Karel Reisz Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Binding: DVD Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Continental Distributing Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: February 05, 2002 Running Time: 90 minutes Theatrical Release Date: April 03, 1961
Description: In his first starring role, Albert Finney gained international acclaim for his impressive (TheNew Yorker) portrayal of Arthur Seaton, a rebellious factory worker who lives only for his wild, carefree nights at the pub. A remarkable and influential drama that captures the despair of working class life, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is 'superbly enacted [and] one of the best ofBritain's 'angry young men dramas of the 60s. (Leonard Maltin). The sights and sounds of industrial Nottingham resonate with a grimy thud as Arthur Seaton works his tedious factory job. Through ale, women and practical jokes, he vents his frustrations against the establishments of work and marriage until his reckless ways lead him to a night that changes his life. Forced to reevaluate his convictions, Arthur must decide exactly what he stands for
Predictable and pretentious. (And those are its *good* points!) I'm afraid I don't see this as anything but a rather *tedious* movie.
Naturalist filmmaking, except in rare cases (e.g., Jules Dassen's "Naked City," Stankey Kubrick's "The Killing") is often just so much lifeless, documentary-style camera-pointing.
Also, the extensive use of dubbing in these movies, as opposed to live-sound, gives one a "once-removed" feeling from the actor's emotions.
OK, Albert Finney is a great actor, no question about that. But not in this movie.
As for the story, it's flat, predictable, one-dimensional. And those are its good points. (Ba-da bing-bing!)
For example, for a movie that's supposed to address the issue of social classes, what does this movie say other than "the guy's stuck"? But how might he escape? This question is never explored. Indeed, the ending is a TINA ending -- "There Is No Alternative."
What dialectic might be applied to the social, political and economic forces the movie attempts to portray? We're never given a clue. Industry, automation, aleination, anomie, working class grit and grime; they're all here -- but no politics, no political context, no meaningful sociological insights!
In what way does this movie speak to the human condition? It's trite, cop-out, play-it-safe ending is as flat as the movie itself.
Simply saying: "Behold, the working class!" doesn't give a movie social or political gravity. Compare this movie to, for example, "Norma Rae." "Norma Rae" is a complete, in-her-world, in-her-class character. As is her husband, her father, her children, her co-workers, the union rep she meets up with. This is what the "Norma Rae" filmmakers succeed in doing. By contrast, such "contextual political/interpersonal structure" is completely lacking in "Saturday Night Sunday Morning." As a movie, it's technically sloppy; and as a story, it's simplistically predictable.
Yes, of course, the movie was, in its time, quite "different" from what preceded it; and no doubt at the time it was quite shocking and upsetting to certain middle class expectations. But so what? In hindsight, it's all quite amateurish; indeed sophomoric.
Unlike Jesse James or Willie Sutton, it doesn't hold up.
(Did you see what I did there? Jesse James, Willie Sutton. A little holdup humor. I gotta million of 'em.)
One can go way back to 1938 and find a much better class-conscious movie, "The Citadel," starring Robert Donat and Ralph (not Tony) Richardson.
"The Citadel" is a movie that, while not shot out in the street, with a jerky, undisciplined camera, nevertheless says more about class consciousness in British society in one minute than this movie does in its entirety.
Sometimes going into the street is just ... going into the street.
So "Saturday Night Sunday Morning" was shot on the street (with lots of dubbed sound effects), in a factory (with lots of dubbed noise), in a real, live pub (with lots of dubbed revelry), between characters (with lots of dubbed dialogue). But so what? WHAT DID THE BLOODY MOVIE HAVE TO SAY?!! If you're making a movie about the working class, shouldn't the movie have an ideological point of view? (A revolutionary idea, I know, but there you have it.)
Note: "Oh-wow-dig-the-working class" is NOT an ideology.
If a film aspires to art, shouldn't it have something to say about the human condition 10, 20, 100 years after the film was created?
Some films do just that (as, for example, "Norma Rae and "The Citadel"). This one doesn't.
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning Classic early 60s British movie. Fine example of how Britain was struggling to pull away from the austerity of the post WWII years. Tremendous acting by a famous British cast. Launched Albert Finney's career - and you can see why. I am 51 now and it reminds me of the landscape I grew up in as a young child. Watch, learn and enjoy!
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Another top quality, British "kitchen-sink" drama from the 1960s, Reisz's film launched Finney to prominence after a promising debut in Tony Richardson's "The Entertainer." Drowning five days of stagnation in one night's revelry--or is it oblivion?--Arthur is the quintessential "angry young man," as he is going nowhere and won't let himself care, either about short-term inconveniences or long-term consequences. Finney is magnetic in the lead, and both Roberts and Shirley Ann Field make compelling love interests. Finney would go on to cement his stardom in the incomparable "Tom Jones".
Braggodocio...and the thumbing of the nose This is the film that put Finney on the map, as the saying goes, and for good reason. He's a great actor, but his performance is more than individual; it's also symbolic of some anger afoot in the UK at the time--i.e., the "angry young men". More specifically, the combination of Finney's sex appeal and braggodocio thumbs its nose at the stereotypical image of Great Britain as the stuffy, staid upholder of propriety and good manners and lords and ladies, et cetera.
His character, Arthur, is working class through and through, and it shows in every scene. He drinks and womanizes and plays tricks--mostly on older women he considers representative of stuffiness and stupidity. But he's callous himself--not stupid, but callous. This is really a slice of life movie that, more than anything else, portrays the British working class in the 1960s pretty much as they were. It's a great companion piece to another excellent British film, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", also from the 1960s, and also featuring a young British actor making his debut, Tom Courtenay.
Finney is electric in his role. What's especially good about this film is that it doesn't so much copy or emulate American movies--in departing from the image of British culture as proper, etc.--as it presents an entirely new type of film, that reveals the day-to-day lives of British workers and societal hangers-on, those who can never take anything for granted.
Thumbing one's nose symbolically and cinematically here is producer Tony Richardson, who went on to direct Finney in "Tom Jones" (a masterpiece, I would say) and director Karel Reisz, a Polish-born Brit who went on to direct a number of other interesting films.
But the biggest nose-thumber of all here is Albert Finney. The ending is deeply ironic because we can see that in short order he'll give up his nose-thumbing ways and settle down with a cute girl who has no higher ambitions, basically, than he does. Will that last? Given Arther's character, it doesn't seem likely.
It's nice to see that Finney is still active in cinema. This debut is stunning and for sure well worth seeing.
Finney Explodes On the Screen With a Vengeance "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" is one of the finest examples of cinema that emerged in Britain from the late Fifties and early Sixties. For sure there is a lot of despair on display here but there is also a glimmer of hope for happiness. Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney), stuck in a meaningless job with little hope for advancement beyond his class, doesn't so much lash out but engages in wreckless and self-destructive behavior. He drinks to excess, he carries on affair with a meek co-worker's wife (Rachel Roberts), he torments a busy-body neighbor with an air gun, he teases the ladies at his plant with a dead rat. Arthur isn't so much angry just stifled. The best chance for redemption is the love of a working-class girl, Doreen (Shirley-Anne Field). Arthur just basically has to do some growing up and brush off the inequities of class-conscious Britain. Finney absolutely mesmerizes in his starring debut. For sure, Arthur engages in some outrageous behavior, but Finney never overplays it. Director Karel Reisz perfectly captures the grimy working class milieu. Essential viewing. On a final note, when are they going to properly re-issue Lindsay Anderson's "This Sporting Life" with Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts, another fine example of British film from the early Sixties.
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