While I was watching Saturday Night And Sunday Morning on Mubi, I came to realise that there would probably be rather a lot of people from nations other than the UK watching this film and attempting to understand what the hell people were talking about here. Which amuses me greatly, especially as they didn't provide subtitles.

So, for those of you from outside this country struggling with some of the terminology in this film or about to watch it for the first time, here's a short glossary of some of the terms you will hear more than once in this film:-

* bleeder: A person of ill-repute - "Some bleeder in Wal-Mart stood on my foot!"

* summat: Another way…

A few weeks in the life of Arthur Seaton, a Nottingham factory worker played by Albert Finney who fancies a pint, a fag, and a tumble; who's even more pathetic than the townsfolk he loathes; who's a terminally selfish and self-destructive asshole. Here are three incidents from late in the film:

1) Arthur foolishly climbs onto a carnival ride alongside the married woman (Rachel Roberts) with whom he's been sleeping. Two soldiers in league with her mild-mannered husband are standing on the outer perimeter of the ride as it goes 'round and around, waiting for Arthur to hop off. The camera catches Arthur and Brenda in a series of tight two shots on the ride itself, with light and shadow…

Albert Finney is on fire in this 1960 entry of the "Kitchen Sink/British New Wave. Based on Alan Sillitoe's excellent novel of the same name, Finney plays Arthur Seaton, a young lad working as a machinist who loves nothing better than drinking, smoking, and fucking. He's having an affair with a co-worker's wife (Rachel Roberts) when he meets Doreen (Shirley Anne Field). He juggles both of them for a while but it isn't long before one of them in pregnant and he finds himself having to make some grown-up decisions.

Finney is extraordinary in this. Honestly, I feel like he's severely unappreciated as an actor. He's had a fantastic career with memorable roles spanning 50 years. I'll plug one of…

The working class tragedy. A life inside a factory with people you know and are related to but who you couldn't care less about under a manager who'll spit at you for as long as you can take all so you can pay board. We treat our women like dirt, use them and hurt them, hold our men to cruel standards and ruin things for those we care for. 'We're trapped' we scream and complain about those around us but we're not any better, we're just as pathetic and mean. This is our story reflected and energised, our leftist anti-establishment morals driving a story of mistakes and regret, Reisz might not love us and rightfully so, we're a group whose…

British Kitchen Sink Realism, a movement all about rolled-up shirt sleeves and pints as black as treacle.

This is your meat-and-potatoes youth-run-amok picture, except it has Albert Finney, who seems to have slaughtered all the bullet points for an iconic role:

• CHARISMA
• WARDROBE
• CATCHPHRASES (he refers to everyone as a "duck" and it's great)
• CIGS
• THE FACT THAT HE COULD GIVE LESS OF A SHIT

But it's a tepid script that ends up dragging his great performance into the dirt. Sure he's a scoundrel, and he does awful things, but he's never given a proper moment of atonement beyond a bloody nose. His Arthur Seaton is inscrutable and invulnerable, hitting the same notes as a…

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) is a brutally honest film. I think we all know someone like Arthur, the main character whose one goal in life is to have good time and could care less about who he hurts in the process. During the course of a few weekends, he starts an affair with a married woman and on the side, courts a young naive woman who lives with her mother and wants Arthur to settle down and start a family. Soon, his actions get the best of him as he impregnates the married woman and must decide whether he will help support the child, help get rid of the child, or avoid the situation completely. While an extremely…