I often joked that a proper continuation to "Saturday Night Fever" was "Sunday Morning Hangover", taking the h-word in its real or figurative meaning. But here is a movie that shares two words with the disco classic and mentions the inevitable aftermath of these turbulent nights. This film is Karel Reisz's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning": there's not much dancing in this one, there's no iconic suit but there's that feverish spirit of a blue-collar youth that waits for Friday night to finally loosen up after a week of factory and its symphony of clinging machinery... with the same rituals, getting your best suit, spotting the prettiest gal, getting a date and a second... and the same testosterone-driven appetites that aren't without dramatic consequences. Hence the "Sunday morning", and its unspoken subtitle: what goes around comes around.
Arthur Seaton is the leading young lad, he's got rugged looks, the insolence and vigor of a guy at the top of his form, who doesn't let TV suck the spirit out of him as it did for his Dad whose dull gaze toward the TV speaks thousand words. He's played by Arthur Finney in his breakthrough role and this is a tour de force performance that never feels like acting, the man simply acts his age and embodies its insouciance and devil-may-care spirit. That's a generation that didn't fight during the war, that went through poverty but takes a substantial benefit from the industrial recovery: work, wages, financial independence. This is the same 60s Ken Loach would later paint in the masterpiece "Kes", the education isn't that much, but for as long as there are jobs, men can have the fun they want while remaining on the prowl... till the 'right one' shows her pretty head.
Arthur's life is made of that: all work on weekdays, we first see him manipulating his lathe and rampaging against the submissive workers like Jack (Bryan Pringle) and the petty foreman Robboe (Robert Cawdron), then pubs and fun on Fridays and Saturdays, with his cousin Bert (Norman Rossington) and eventually some fishing on Sundays. He's having an affair with Jack's wife Brenda (Rachel Roberts) and the plot thickens when he catches the beautiful Doreen (Shirley Ann Field) on a Sunday morning. Now, "Room at the Top" was the first British film to deal explicitly with infidelity but it was slightly different: the woman was living an unhappy marriage, what's more with a cheater, and the actress Simone Signoret, as well as her character, was French, which could content the Legion of Decency.
This time Brenda is British, she's cheating on her boy's father, and we see the two lovers in bed, and Reisz should be saluted for his bravado: he threw a stone in the water and transcended the love triangle trope by showing the truth in its naked vulnerability. Both Finney and Roberts share the same bed, leaving no doubt over their occupations. Later when she reveals her pregnancy, we realize that Karel Reizs wasn't ready to sugarcoat the material from Alan Sillitoes' novel, nor to over-dramatize it. Rachel Roberts is the perfect match to Finney, she doesn't play a depraved woman but one with dignity who blames her lover yet the material never falls in the melodramatic trap, keeping in tune with its realistic tone. For all its realism, "Room at the Top" was a morality tale, in this film, we're not put in a position to judge the characters or expect a Karmic ending because life doesn't work that way.
The two segments of the love triangle never really converge, but they ironically allow Arthur to get away with his actions; when he meets Doreen, he doesn't play the big game, knowing that he's got a woman to satisfy his lower needs. By not overplaying the needy card, he looks strangely more attractive, and the more trouble he gets into, the closer it takes him to Doreen. He does end up having his comeuppance, fittingly coming from two clean-cut soldiers, the symbol is eloquent. Still, this is not a film caring about narrative conventions, this is a historical piece of British cinema, the first tides of the New Wave of what would later called as 'kitchen sink' realism. Like "400 Blows" or "Breathless", the film deals with youth and their struggle to adapt to a world where freedom is counted in years. Because beyond the friendship, the romance, and the consequences, there's the urgency of commitment.
"Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" shows you the reality of the working class, there's a documentary-like precision in its depiction of the factory and the interactions within employees, you have typical need to go to the pub where formal clothes for once made the classes disappear. Finney is such a presence that he carries the whole film with his broad and robust shoulders, charismatic, naughty and charming, being a presence to count on. Watching him flirting, being angry, playing with kids and tormenting his nemesis, Mrs. Bull (Edna Morris) gives the film an aura of authenticity and entertainment. You could watch the film for the historical aspect, for its groundbreaking nature but also the performance of Finney that sets all the common patterns of a famous British trope: the angry young man.
Behind that that anger, there's a social comment on masculinity during the post-war economical boom, where boys were boys and learned to be men in the short span given to them before they could become husbands and fathers. "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" is like the last spurt of freedom and independence before the finishing line which is marriage. Arthur doesn't get away with his wrong doings because he's the protagonist but simply because his experience is the schematic pattern of many boys his age, again, this is no morality play, this is modern film-making and a British little revolution carried by the charismatic personality of Sir Finney.
Arthur Seaton is the leading young lad, he's got rugged looks, the insolence and vigor of a guy at the top of his form, who doesn't let TV suck the spirit out of him as it did for his Dad whose dull gaze toward the TV speaks thousand words. He's played by Arthur Finney in his breakthrough role and this is a tour de force performance that never feels like acting, the man simply acts his age and embodies its insouciance and devil-may-care spirit. That's a generation that didn't fight during the war, that went through poverty but takes a substantial benefit from the industrial recovery: work, wages, financial independence. This is the same 60s Ken Loach would later paint in the masterpiece "Kes", the education isn't that much, but for as long as there are jobs, men can have the fun they want while remaining on the prowl... till the 'right one' shows her pretty head.
Arthur's life is made of that: all work on weekdays, we first see him manipulating his lathe and rampaging against the submissive workers like Jack (Bryan Pringle) and the petty foreman Robboe (Robert Cawdron), then pubs and fun on Fridays and Saturdays, with his cousin Bert (Norman Rossington) and eventually some fishing on Sundays. He's having an affair with Jack's wife Brenda (Rachel Roberts) and the plot thickens when he catches the beautiful Doreen (Shirley Ann Field) on a Sunday morning. Now, "Room at the Top" was the first British film to deal explicitly with infidelity but it was slightly different: the woman was living an unhappy marriage, what's more with a cheater, and the actress Simone Signoret, as well as her character, was French, which could content the Legion of Decency.
This time Brenda is British, she's cheating on her boy's father, and we see the two lovers in bed, and Reisz should be saluted for his bravado: he threw a stone in the water and transcended the love triangle trope by showing the truth in its naked vulnerability. Both Finney and Roberts share the same bed, leaving no doubt over their occupations. Later when she reveals her pregnancy, we realize that Karel Reizs wasn't ready to sugarcoat the material from Alan Sillitoes' novel, nor to over-dramatize it. Rachel Roberts is the perfect match to Finney, she doesn't play a depraved woman but one with dignity who blames her lover yet the material never falls in the melodramatic trap, keeping in tune with its realistic tone. For all its realism, "Room at the Top" was a morality tale, in this film, we're not put in a position to judge the characters or expect a Karmic ending because life doesn't work that way.
The two segments of the love triangle never really converge, but they ironically allow Arthur to get away with his actions; when he meets Doreen, he doesn't play the big game, knowing that he's got a woman to satisfy his lower needs. By not overplaying the needy card, he looks strangely more attractive, and the more trouble he gets into, the closer it takes him to Doreen. He does end up having his comeuppance, fittingly coming from two clean-cut soldiers, the symbol is eloquent. Still, this is not a film caring about narrative conventions, this is a historical piece of British cinema, the first tides of the New Wave of what would later called as 'kitchen sink' realism. Like "400 Blows" or "Breathless", the film deals with youth and their struggle to adapt to a world where freedom is counted in years. Because beyond the friendship, the romance, and the consequences, there's the urgency of commitment.
"Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" shows you the reality of the working class, there's a documentary-like precision in its depiction of the factory and the interactions within employees, you have typical need to go to the pub where formal clothes for once made the classes disappear. Finney is such a presence that he carries the whole film with his broad and robust shoulders, charismatic, naughty and charming, being a presence to count on. Watching him flirting, being angry, playing with kids and tormenting his nemesis, Mrs. Bull (Edna Morris) gives the film an aura of authenticity and entertainment. You could watch the film for the historical aspect, for its groundbreaking nature but also the performance of Finney that sets all the common patterns of a famous British trope: the angry young man.
Behind that that anger, there's a social comment on masculinity during the post-war economical boom, where boys were boys and learned to be men in the short span given to them before they could become husbands and fathers. "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" is like the last spurt of freedom and independence before the finishing line which is marriage. Arthur doesn't get away with his wrong doings because he's the protagonist but simply because his experience is the schematic pattern of many boys his age, again, this is no morality play, this is modern film-making and a British little revolution carried by the charismatic personality of Sir Finney.