Saturday Night Out is a 1964 British comedy-drama film directed by Robert Hartford-Davis and starring Heather Sears, John Bonney, Bernard Lee, Erika Remberg, Francesca Annis, Margaret Nolan and David Lodge.[1] It is known for its portrayal of early Swinging London.[2]

Saturday Night Out
Directed byRobert Hartford-Davis
Written byDerek Ford
Donald Ford
Produced byMichael Klinger
Tony Tenser
StarringHeather Sears
John Bonney
Bernard Lee
CinematographyPeter Newbrook
Edited byAlastair McIntyre
Music byRobert Richards
Production
companies
Compton Films
Tekli British Productions
Distributed byCompton-Cameo Films (UK)
Release date
  • April 1964 (1964-04) (UK)
Running time
100 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

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A trio of merchant seamen and several passengers disembark from their ship when it arrives at the Pool of London and go out for a Saturday night's entertainment in the city.

Cast

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Production

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The film was an independent production shot at Shepperton Studios and on location around London.[citation needed] The film's set were designed by the art director Peter Proud.

Critical reception

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Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Routine multi-stranded story of sailors on the town – meeting nice girls, meeting floozy girls, getting drunk, being robbed and so forth. Both script and direction, though striving hard to inject a flavouring of sex and wit, are colourless; but the acting is in general rather better than anything else in the film."[3]

Variety said: " Robert Hartford Davis is a sound director, but Saturday Night Out has fallen apart mainly because of poor, undistinguished dialog and predictable situations. There are some good glimpses of thesping, and locales are satisfactorily presented. ... Hartford-Davis has done a routine but uninspired job as director and producer. Perhaps the greatest disappointment in the film is the appearance of Miss Sears, after a longish layoff, in a role which gives poor scope for her talent."[4]

The New Statesman wrote: "Consistently ridiculous, Saturday Night Out is the latest thing to come from that egregious team who gave us The Yellow Teddybears. In this one Robert Hartford-Davis follows the fortunes of four disembarked matelots and a passenger (Bernard Lee), separately hotfoot after a bit of you-know-what in and around London's square-mile of vice. The lackadaisical direction, particularly inept in a kind of Christopher Robin interlude with a girl beatnik that is patently there to lend both tone and scope to an otherwise sordid outing, incredibly sharpens during a little descent into a Soho clip-joint – admonitory and marvellously played."[5]

References

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  1. ^ "The Black Torment". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
  2. ^ John Hamilton, Beasts in the Cellar: The Exploitation Film Career of Tony Tenser, Fab Press, 2005, p 30-33
  3. ^ "Saturday Night Out". Monthly Film Bulletin. 31 (360): 77. 1964 – via ProQuest.
  4. ^ "Saturday Night Out". Variety. 234 (4): 6. 18 March 1964 – via ProQuest.
  5. ^ "Saturday Night Out". New Statesman. 67: 375. 1964 – via ProQuest.
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