Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)
Directed by Karel Reisz

Film Review

"Don't let the bastards grind you down."  Half a century on, Arthur Seaton's anti-establishment mantra still trips easily off the lips of the disgruntled, disenfranchised and plain bloody-minded, but the film in which he uttered these immortal words looks like something from another planet.  Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was one of a series of hard hitting social realist films made in Britain in the late 1950s, early 1960s which reflected a burgeoning class consciousness in society and a resentment, primarily amongst young working class men, for authority and a system that was geared towards the rich and powerful.  John Osborn set the ball rolling with his play Look Back In Anger, which was brought to the big screen in 1959 by Tony Richardson, one of the leading figures in the New Wave of British cinema.  A spate of films in which angry young men vented their spleen ensued, including Jack Clayton's Room at the Top (1959) and Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962).

In this series of films, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is the one that is, arguably, nearest to its real-life subject.  Based on Alan Sillitoe's semi-autobiographical novel and filmed almost as a documentary, it offers a grim slice of life in the East Midlands town of Nottingham and revolves around a hot-headed factory worker who deals with the frustration of an unsatisfying working class existence by lashing out at everyone and everything.  The bleak industrialised landscape, with its forest of chimney stacks, forlorn factories and endless slums of cramped living quarters, is enough to drain hope from anyone.  Booze, sex and death are the only way out of this life-sapping abyss, and none of these is without its downside, as the film's hero soon discovers.

In common with most of the 'angry young men' films of its time, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning now feels quaintly patronising, a somewhat patrician intellectual view of the working class that borders on parody.  The characters, whilst played with conviction by a talented pool of actors, resemble out-dated archetypes rather than real people.  The pre-war generation are happily docile in their rut, 'dead from the neck up'; the youngsters merely rant and rave, showing no inclination to improve their own lot or change the system that isn't to their liking.  It is quite shocking how defeatist this strand of 'kitchen sink' drama is and it is hard to account for the genre's success at the box office.  With improving living standards caused by the consumer boom of the 1960s, films of this kind would soon go out of fashion but, with their sobering realism, they vividly capture the mood of their time and offer a taste of the festering class consciousness that would help to transform British society within a few short decades.

In his first major screen role, Albert Finney brings a tragic reality to his bitterly authentic portrayal of the film's resilient anti-hero.  Belligerent, self-centred and showing an obvious malicious streak, Arthur Seaton may not be the most attractive of personalities but Finney compels us to identify with him and see him as an emblem for a generation for whom the prospect of social mobility was pretty well non-existent.  Seaton's 'them and us' mentality has long characterised the British class system and continues to blight British society, so whilst the film looks dated it still has a powerful resonance.  The injustice of a system that favours the privileged few by exploiting the majority is one that is commonly felt today.  There is still a great deal to be angry about.

Film Synopsis

Contemptuous of his working class milieu, hostile to all forms of authority, Arthur Seaton is doing his damnedest not to be ground down by life.  For a man of his age, he earns a decent wage as a toolmaker at a factory in Nottingham, and he squanders his hard earned cash on drink and fancy clothes.   He lives for the weekend, when he goes fishing with his mate Bert and carries on an affair with a married woman named Brenda.  Arthur soon grows tired of Brenda and starts going out with a younger woman, Doreen, but not before he has put her predecessor in the family way.  Brenda considers having an abortion but decides to keep the child, as one more will not make that much difference.  At a fairground, Brenda's husband sees Arthur in the company of his wife and decides it is time for Arthur to be taught a lesson he won't forget in a hurry...