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Saturday Night Out
Directed by Robert Hartford-Davis
Written by Derek Ford
Donald Ford
Produced by Michael Klinger
Tony Tenser
Starring Heather Sears
John Bonney
Bernard Lee
Cinematography Peter Newbrook
Edited by Alastair McIntyre
Music by Robert Richards
Production
companies
Compton Films
Tekli British Productions
Distributed by Compton-Cameo Films (UK)
Release date
April 1964 (UK)
Running time 100 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Saturday Night Out is a 1964 British comedy-drama film directed by Robert Hartford-Davis. It stars Heather Sears, John Bonney, Bernard Lee, Erika Remberg, Francesca Annis, Margaret Nolan, and David Lodge. The film is known for its portrayal of early Swinging London.
Plot
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
Heather Sears as Penny
John Bonney as Lee
Bernard Lee as George Hudson
Erika Remberg as Wanda
Colin Campbell as Jamey
Francesca Annis as Jean
Inigo Jackson as Harry
Vera Day as Arlene
Caroline Mortimer as Marline
Margaret Nolan as Julie
David Lodge as Arthur
Nigel Green as Paddy
Toni Gilpin as Margaret
Barbara Roscoe as Miss Bingo
Martine Beswick as a barmaid
Patricia Hayes as Edie’s mother
Derek Bond as Paul
Freddie Mills as Joe
The Searchers as themselves
David Burke as Manager
Shirley Cameron as Edie
Patsy Fagan as a barmaid
Gerry Gibson as doorman
Barry Langford as barman
Janet Milner as a waitress
Wendy Newton as Kathy
Jack Taylor as landlord
Production
The film was an independent production shot at Shepperton Studios and on location around London. The art director, Peter Proud, designed the set.
Critical reception
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, somewhat better than anything else in the film“.
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.”
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.
