BJJManchester Though not quite an example of the British ''Free Cinema'' movement,Michael Grigsby's 'TOMORROW'S Saturday' is certainly heavily influenced by this important,influential style of filmmaking which changed the cultural outlook of British cinema for the better.Made in the most modest of circumstances,on Bolex 16mm cameras over a period of two years in the producer's spare time,'TOMORROW'S Saturday' has a wistful,poetic quality despite the rugged aspects of late 1950's working class life in the Lancashire towns of Blackburn and Preston, beautifully filmed in locations such as noisy cotton mills,back to back terraces,cobblestone streets,football grounds and public houses.The impressionistic sound track matches perfectly with the visuals,of a lamented time and culture that has long since passed.The said filmmakers were fed up at the time of a middle class dominated film landscape in Britain,and it was thanks to their innovative efforts that led to the British New Wave with such films as 'Saturday NIGHT AND Sunday MORNING' (some of the scenes depicted recall that most seminal and ground breaking of films which starred Albert Finney) and 'A TASTE OF HONEY' and also the TV serial 'CORONATION STREET',which all started in the early 60's which at long last dramatised working class life in Britain in an honest,realistic manner.'TOMORROW'S Saturday' has no voice over but is all the better for it,and although it may appear dated and clichéd now still comes over as fresh,fascinating and gloriously poetic of a time when working class communities thrived economically and socially before the sad demise and breaking up of the textile industry,which inevitably led to fragmented families and housing that fell victim to demolition.'TOMORROW'S Saturday' is a gem of a short documentary that deserves to be better known.

bob the moo Buck up, tomorrow's Saturday. Funny how us working stiffs have said the same thing for decades – a colleague said more or less the same thing to me just the other day! This is where the title comes from as Grigsby starts in the mill but pulls away to focus on the weekend of the working class. Speaking as someone whose employer does four on, four off with 24 hour working, this world is perhaps no longer present in heavy industry but this film did a good job of capturing the way that the weekend is freedom and is a place of release from the working week.It is very much a part of the Free Cinema school because it does move around the community capturing the real life in such a way that it doesn't feel like there is a camera there. The snapshot of the working classes remains to this day and it is effective as such following the close of work, the running children, the atmosphere of the pub. My favourite shot of the film has to be of the football ground; set up outside all we can see is a floodlight stand but the roar of the crowd is audible and is all the film needs to convey its point.A good entry in the Free Cinema ideal which stands as a brief salute to the communities of the working class of the late 1950's.