Cinema
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Karel Reisz · 1960
Synopsis
In Nottingham, Arthur Seaton, a lathe operator in a bicycle factory, curses at his machine over the thousand parts to be made each day for fourteen pounds a week. On Saturday night, he drinks at the pub, competing to see who can empty the most glasses, then spends the night at Brenda's, the wife of a workmate, Jack. He also meets Doreen, younger, who wants to marry and keeps him at a distance. Brenda tells him one day that she is expecting a child, at a time when abortion is forbidden.
Context
The novelist, Alan Sillitoe, wrote the screenplay himself from his first book, published in 1958, and the director, who until then had made only documentaries, was making his first feature film here. It was shot in Nottingham, at the Raleigh bicycle factory, and the house of the novelist's family was used for the filming. Classified for adults, it could be shown in the county of Warwickshire only after cuts demanded by the local council. It was a great popular success and received three national prizes, including that for best British film.
Who it is for
Eighty-nine minutes, in black and white, in the English of the Midlands; the French DVD comes with a short documentary by the same director.
Prizes and reception
Fourteenth in the British ranking of 1999, one of the founding films of the British New Wave, it made Albert Finney a star.
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