AFS Essentials: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Arthur Seaton (a young, bright Albert Finney) reminds us of ourselves--a hard working man that refuses to let the daytime sweat on his brow dictate his ability to personify something more grand in the twilight hours. (Granted our job doesn't necessarily make us "sweat" in the conventional definition, and we are actually of the female persuasion, but that's all semantics really.) He cares not what toll his rabble rousing may bring upon those around him, but as most of us know, what we do in the dark must be accounted for in the light. Tonight the Austin Film Society will let you stare into your future (or possibly your past, you little chippy) as they present Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the fifth offering in their Essential Cinema series "Blokes 'n Birds: British Realist Cinema, 1958-1965."

Apparently, when Saturday Night and Sunday Morning first premiered in 1961, people would stumble out of the theater and into the nearest pub, with a slight feeling that perhaps they were actually in the movie themselves, that the characters were people that they just passed in the grocery or sat next to while enjoying a pint. The character of Arther Seaton truly was the everyman, which may have added to the scandalous nature of the film because people didn't want to believe that the everyman was someone who would go around sleeping with (and impregnating) their friends and co-workers' wives. Add to that the talk of abortion and you better believe some British knickers were in a twist.

Finney was brand new to the film world, having had just one other part in The Entertainer and a t.v. spot or two preceding SNaSM, so many people don't remember him before his starmaking turn as Tom Jones (which garnered a Best Actor nod from the Academy), but this film is touted as the moment when he truly burst onto the scene, establishing himself as the most promising newcomer to hit the screens of late. Considering that he is one of the stars of Sidney Lumet's upcoming Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which is one of the Marquee screenings at the swiftly approaching Austin Film Festival, we can say that people back in the '60s actually did know what they were talking about.

AFS Essentials: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Tuesday, October 2nd
Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
7pm, $4 / Free to AFS members
[Tickets]