Saturday Night Out

Seven sailors in London have an evening out before they have to return to ship.

It's an example of the 'Swinging London' genre of film, which means a diversity of exploits, from David Lodge, who spends the evening in with an old girl friend, to Bernard Lee, who thinks he's struck gold, to John Bonney and Coiln Campbell, who find love and frustration. There's a lot of seaminess to this movie, which turns out to be essentially normative and no worse than PG-12 by modern standards.

Liverpool band The Searchers play one number in a night club. The producers got the Beatles for the gig, but decided they didn't want to pay the train fare.

I wasn't expecting much but I was very pleasantly surprised.

The thoughtful work on this film by all concerned is clear to see. Thanks!

Great performances.

Not to be mistaken with the famous British kitchen sink drama SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING; the next day hardly matters and there are hardly any sinks in SATURDAY NIGHT OUT...

Except maybe at Heather Sears' bizarro apartment as a flaky, blunt and childish Beatnik chick, having met one of several merchant seaman on a weekend pass, starting out at a nightclub where house band The Searchers jovially blast their dance-steady Beatlesque rock...

Providing the kind of source music (non-composed and heard by both the audience and characters) that'd become normal a decade later in the 24-hour spanning all-night classic AMERICAN GRAFFITI...

Alas this forerunner has a bland existential plot yet is loaded with fine British actors like Bernard Lee (despite being way too old for ingenue Erika Remberg), Nigel Green and David Lodge...

And while not crime-centered like many B&W British New Wave flicks, the best story involves Inigo Jackson seduced by and progressively ripped off by a darker club's b-girls Caroline Mortimer and Vera Day as he slowly catches on, providing the most situational suspense herein...

Meanwhile the only satisfying arc has Francesca Annis forever hooked with the handsomest of the traipsing males: all of whom should have had a wilder, more intriguing SATURDAY NIGHT OUT...

Overall this feels more like a Tuesday.

Although strictly a 'quota quickie', this British picture is lively and passably entertaining in it's episodic telling of the adventures of five sailor's spending a night in London. The two youngest go looking for girls but only find prostitutes ( discussed in a surprisingly frank manner) although photogenic Francesca Annis and naive Colin Campbell do find common ground. David Lodge heads for bed with floozy Margaret Nolan ( a popular glamor model of the time--she was also in 'Goldfinger') for a saucily comic diversion. Bernard Lee takes the acting honors as a quiet, mature gentleman who is almost caught in a badger game. Add to this an appearance by Merseybeat group, The Searchers, and you do have a fairly peppy Saturday Night Out!

I was in the Merchant Navy at this time and much of the film rings true. I only visited a clip joint once but you never forget. This was not the part of London that swung but further East. Some scenes are embarrassing but it is entertaining.