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The film started with Arthur Seaton (played by Albert Finney is his first movie role) churning out bike parts on his capstan lathe.
As the Raleigh workers clocked off, they were shown walking and cycling home, no cars in sight.
When the film was produced, Raleigh was still the biggest bike maker in the world, and one of Nottingham’s largest employers.
‘Saturday night and Sunday morning’ was produced by Harry Seltzman. He used the money he made from this small-budget film to buy the film rights to Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Yes, that’s right, a film about Raleigh helped to give birth to the biggest grossing movie franchise of all time.
Odd, though, that Saturday night and Sunday morning should have been aired on the same day as Raleigh moved from Lenton to Eastwood, and as the company went from assembling to pure sales and marketing. A scheduler with an ironic sense of history, then? Or was it just a coincidence?
