Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 film adaptation
of the novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe
adapted the screenplay himself and the film was directed by
Karel Reisz.
It tells the story of Arthur Seaton,played by Albert Finney,
a young Nottingham factory worker, who is having an affair
with Brenda, played by Rachel Robertas,the wife of an older
co-worker. He also has a relationship with Doreen,played by
Shirley Anne Field, a woman closer to his own age.
It is a terrifying glimpse into an age where work, booze,
and death were all that Britain's young men had to look
forward to. "What I want is a good time, the rest is all
propaganda," is Seaton's saying, but in the end, he
realizes he's fighting a losing battle as an affair with
his best friend's wife (Roberts) ends badly. She is
pregnant and her husband finds out about her affair. Arthur
earns a beating from the cuckolded husband's squaddie
brother for his peccadillo. He ends up back with Doreen and
the final scene takes place on the top of a hill where both
of them are talking about their future planes. It seem that
Arthur is finally realizing that marriage is probably
unavoidable. He has fallen in love with Doreen and they end
up talking about what type of house Doreen would like to
eventually live in.
Actually this film takes place about the same time that the
world seems to be going through a cultural revolution that
led us into the sixties. The Beatles,Rolling Stones, and
many other groups will come into their own during this
decade.
This is a black and white film that will end up as a true
classic for its time. Finney was voted the most promising
newcomer at the British Academy's (BAFTA) awards. To me it
kind of symbolized the struggles that most of us go through
during our rebellious younger years and the inevitable
realization about how we are going to spend the rest of our
lives.