User Reviews

I have watched this film several times and still find it quite captivating, despite the piano/singing sequences. The story by Hartley is much reminiscent of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, written earlier. It has secret passion, deceit and class differences for main themes. I think some of the contents of the film may be a bit confusing or unclear for someone who has not read the book, but otherwise it is a good adaptation.

*** POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD***

Throughout the film we cannot help feeling sorry for the ever-running boy Leo (Dominic Guard), especially in two scenes: first when he is scolded by Marian (Julie Christie) for initially avoiding her request; she then manipulates him, making him feel guilty to get her own way. The cruelty lies in the use of her privileged status, which makes it easy for her to win over his resistance by reminding him of his poor background. Second when he is caught in his lies by Mrs Maudsley we can only pity him despite his mistakes.

The feeling of an imminent disaster is well present and the building of the tension announces the end of the deceit for Ted (Alan Bates) and Marian, as well as the young boy's lost innocence (after his initial ignorance about sexual matters or the details of the love affair itself). As soon as the secret is out, the triangular links are destroyed : the days of complicity between Leo and the two illicit lovers are over, and the truth is fatal to the other triangle formed by Ted, Marian and Hugh.

One of the interests of the film is in the use of a certain language ("spooning"), as well as the subtext ( Marian explaining to Leo : "I must marry him (Hugh)", implies the social pressure, the society expectation and probably the fact she must know she is pregnant at this stage).

Despite the tragic denouement and Leo's trauma there is a notion of hope at the end; Now a much older man Leo is given a last mission as a "postman". His revisit of the Hall is a journey into the past as well as an opportunity for him to discover the present results of what happened years ago.

This is a beautifully filmed piece of cinema in which the real "stars" are time and place. The plot, such as it is, is rather thin and drawn out, whilst characterisation is sketchy and insubstantial. There is a sense that such sketchiness is deliberate and justified in order to capture those distances which exist between childhood and the adult world, between one class and another and, of course, the sexes. Alan Bates' farmer Ted Burgess is given no depth beyond that of horny rustic, whilst Julie Christie as Marian wears her dresses well without once betraying any real hint of what she feels beneath her corset. This emotionless quality which hangs over the drama as heavily as the Norfolk heat in which it takes place is nowhere as perfectly captured as in the smoking room scene in which Hugh (Edward Fox) and the head of the household Mr Maudsley( Michael Gough) communicate over the head of Leo, wonderfully played by Dominic Court, with looks and pauses and words whose deeper meanings the young boy can only come to understand when he is older and able to look back on the events of that summer as an adult. No review of this film would be complete without a mention of Margaret Leighton's commanding performance as the powerful, class obsessed matriarch, Mrs Maudsley who, ultimately, is forced to cut through the knowing acceptance of the males, and bring the relationship between Marian and Ted to an end, at the same time, unwittingly bringing Leo face to face with the disturbing truth of what goes on between men and women in the world of adults.

The source novel, (obviously inspired by Lawrence's more carnal "Lady Chatterley's Lover") I had read a year or so ago on holiday and thoroughly enjoyed so it was with much anticipation that I settled down at last to watch this celebrated adaptation by American exile Joseph Losey, with its top-notch British cast. I wasn't disappointed. To the best of my recollection, the film is very true to the novel, only slightly modifying the epilogue-type ending by introducing the years-later reunion of Marion and Leo in teasingly inserted sequences which initially might confuse the casual viewer. The main theme of the movie, to my mind is the corruption of innocence as the adults in the world of naive young outsider Leo, take advantage of his susceptibility and willingness to please, not to mention his pubescent fascination with physical love, to use him as an unwitting pawn in their adult games of deception and lust. Thus we learn at the conclusion that Leo has never married or, even, by inference, enjoyed any kind of natural relationship with a woman, thus is his trust and innocence abused for all time.The film of course also comments tellingly on snobbery, class division and heroism in between-the-wars England but in the end its most important facet is the interplay of the four main characters, Marion, Ted Burgess, Lord Trillingham and of course young Leo, as the film moves inexorably towards its predictably tragic ending. The acting is generally very good, especially the main female parts played by Julie Christie and Margaret Leighton as errant daughter and suspicious mother respectively. The male acting I was slightly less enamoured of, Alan Bates failing to me to really suggest the rough physicality which draws Marion away from the safe, arranged, matrimonial match offered by the affable jolly good chap, Lord Trillingham, well played by a young Edward Fox. The young actor playing Leo, acts his part very well although the scenes with his young school-friend, Marion's younger brother, are a bit strained and accordingly unconvincing. The direction I found largely well-paced, although one or two short interludes seemed unnecessary in the editing and occasionally the frightfully, frightfully accents of the cast grated somewhat. Harold Pinter's screenplay stays properly close to its source and is less noticeably Pinter-ian than I would have expected, not too many characteristic pregnant pauses or repetitions. The climax (sorry, no pun intended) in the barn was effectively led up to and delivered. I did however find the music by Michel Legrand lacked a little subtlety, out of kilter with the delicate emotions on display here and also lacking the required pastoral touch. On the whole though this was a rewarding and entrancing movie, as good a classic book adaptation as you could hope to see and probably a precursor of Merchant-Ivory's success later in the decade.

Contains spoilers

Based on a novel by L.P. Hartley, 'The Go-Between' is set during a hot August in late Victorian or Edwardian England. (References to the Boer War suggest that the year is 1900 or 1901). Leo, a twelve year old schoolboy has gone to stay with his school friend Marcus Maudsley and his wealthy family in their stately home in the Norfolk countryside. Leo meets Marcus's older sister Marion, who is secretly having an affair with Ted Burgess, a local farmer. Marion needs to keep this relationship hidden from her parents, who would not approve of Burgess as a potential son-in-law, partly because they regard him as being a social inferior, partly because he has a reputation (possibly undeserved) as a philanderer and partly because they are encouraging her to marry another suitor, the rich aristocrat Hugh Trimingham. In order to keep her secret, Marion needs a messenger to take messages between herself and Ted; she cannot trust the servants, whose first loyalty is to her father, so she enlists Leo as the 'go-between' of the film's title. Leo is ideal for this purpose; he is from a middle-class background less affluent than the Maudsleys and is too much in awe of the beautiful, sophisticated Marion to think of disobeying her. Moreover, his youth and innocence about sexual matters mean that he does not understand the full implications of Marion's friendship with Ted.

Throughout the film there are occasional scenes set at a later period in history- the late forties or fifties to judge by the clothes and vehicles that we see. These are initially very brief glimpses- lasting only a few seconds- but we later see more of this later period, including scenes of the now-elderly Marion and the middle-aged Leo.

The weather plays an important part in this film. The latter-day scenes are shot against a backdrop of grey, overcast skies. The turn of the century scenes, however, mostly take place against a background of sunshine and fierce heat. There is much evocative photography of the English countryside, the pale, sun-bleached colours capturing the dried-up, dusty look of a late summer heatwave. (The subdued tones of this film tend to set it apart from the richer colours of other examples of 'British heritage cinema' such as the work of Merchant Ivory. It is interesting that both Joseph Losey and James Ivory were American rather than British by birth). Although there are plenty of open vistas (Norfolk is one of the flattest parts of England), there is a stifling, claustrophobic atmosphere. The pace of the film is, for the most part, leisurely (the English upper classes rarely do anything in a hurry, particularly during hot weather), but there is always a sense of movement, slow but inexorable, towards some fateful denouement, a sense heightened by Michel Legrand's urgent, insistent musical score. (The scoring is reminiscent of a late Romantic piano concerto). Just as the hot weather is building up towards an inevitable thunderstorm, so the relationship between Marion and Ted is building towards a tragic climax. When this climax finally comes and their secret is revealed, it does so on a day of torrential rain after the weather has broken.

It is perhaps an interesting comment on changing climatic patterns that in the film a temperature of 83 degrees Fahrenheit (which today in Southern Britain would be regarded as a normal warm summer's day) is regarded as a record-breaking heatwave. In 1970, a year coming at the end of two decades of cool, rainy summers, hot weather was not something taken for granted, even in August.

One of the main themes of the film is an examination of the social class structure of the period. This structure is more subtle than a simple rich/poor divide. The Maudsleys, part of the landed gentry, are not quite aristocrats; Trimingham, a peer of the realm, is the genuine article, so they see his marriage to their daughter as a step towards social advancement. The family's attitude towards the bourgeois Leo is somewhat condescending as though he were a 'poor relation', but Leo's family are clearly not poor in any absolute sense; if they were, his widowed mother could not afford to send him to the same private school as Marcus. Even Burgess is probably comparatively prosperous- Norfolk contains some of the richest agricultural land in Britain- but his lowly social origins, betrayed by his rustic accent, and his status as a tenant count against him.

There are a number of excellent acting performances in the film, particularly from those two iconic sixties figures Julie Christie and Alan Bates as the doomed lovers, Margaret Leighton as Marion's obsessive mother whose prying precipitates the tragedy, Dominic Guard as young Leo and Michael Redgrave as the older Leo. The one thing I did not like was the use of the twenty-nine year old Christie to play the older Marion; even the use of make-up and low-level lighting could not make her a convincing seventy or eighty, and the film would have been improved by casting an older actress in the part.

Dominic Guard did not go on to make many more feature films, but the other major film in which he starred was Peter Weir's 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' five years later. There are a surprising number of parallels between the two films; both are set during a period of oppressive summer heat around 1900, both have a similarly claustrophobic atmosphere, and both deal with emerging female sexuality and with the Victorian/Edwardian class system. 'The Go-Between,' which is more realistic and less mystical in tone, is not quite on the same level as Weir's masterpiece, but it is nevertheless one of the best British films of the early seventies. (There are also parallels with the only other film in which Bates and Christie acted together, John Schlesinger's adaptation of Hardy's 'Far from the Madding Crowd'. With its rural setting and story of love between people of different social classes, Hartley's novel clearly shows the influence of Hardy). 8/10

Winsome Dominic Guard plays Leo in this movie made from the novel by the famous English physician and author, L. P. Hartley.

This was the first movie made by young Guard, who was 15 years old but playing a 13 year old boy. Guard went on to a movie career ending with a role in Gandhi (1982). He carries off the role of young Leo to perfection, with his long hair and fetching smile.

It is high summer in Edwardian England. Leo is from a single parent home, his father is dead. And his mother lives in reduced circumstances. His pal from boarding school, Marcus (played by Richard Gibson) brings him home to the family estate in Norfolk to spend the summer. England is having a heat wave that year, and the weather and scenery play as much of a role in this movie as do the actors.

Marcus' big sister, Marian (Julie Christie - Dr. Zhivago, etc.) has fallen for Ted (Alan Bates) the tenant farmer. This was a big no-no in the society of that time. She enthralls Leo, and uses him as the go-between, delivering messages for trysts with her lover.

Leo is turning 13 that summer. And he has a burning interest to find out "what happens after spooning? I don't know the word for it". Typical of a 13 year old boy. See Guard at his best acting the wondering Leo asking this question of his new pal, farmer Ted. Such wide eyed innocence.

Needless to say, Leo does find out the answer, somewhat to his horror, at the climax of the movie. This happens during his birthday party, which turns out to be the party from hell when his, Marian's and Ted's secret comes out.

It's a horrid end to a fabulous summer for the boy. He turns 13. He made new friends with Marian and Ted. The rich family of his pal Marcus treat him well. He even befriends Hugh, the viscount engaged to Marian. He makes the all-star catch at cricket to win the game for his side, even though it puts out Ted, the champion of the village versus the manor game.

Yet he also discovers betrayal, and lying. And all the charms of growing up.

An elaborate UK period costume drama from Joseph Losey, the Palme d'Or winner of 1971 and scripted by Harold Pinter (their third collaboration after THE SERVANT 1963, 8/10 and ACCIDENT 1967), which also bookended the honeymoon period between them, from L.P. Hartley's eponymous novel which begins with "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there". The central narrative is set in 1900, a 12-soon-to-be-13Leo (Guard) stays as a guest with the wealthy family of his schoolmate Marcus (Gibson) in rural Norfolk during a torrid summer, and soon becomes a go-between and delivers letters between Marcus' upscale sister Marian (Christe) and her secret inamorato Ted Burgess (Bates), a tenant farmer.

While the upper class splendor does open the eyes of Leo, who is from a not-so-noble family, he is more intrigued by Ted's unrefined masculinity, and constantly pesters him about the meaning of "spooning", also his fascination towards the gorgeous Marian retains him as the loyal messenger of their forbidden romance. Until he knows Marian will marry to Hugh Trimingham (Fox), a viscount returned from war, with a glaring scar on his face, a man whom he also respects, Leo wavers, and on the day of his 13th birthday, a tryst is about to be uncovered by Marian's stern mother (Leighton), and tragedy inevitably will separate the ill-fated lovers.

The film impresses foremost with its stunning bucolic scenery, the alternately mellifluous and eerie sonic environment wondrously created by Michel Legrand's score. And it also takes an unconventional route to underpin the story's seemingly placid surface, exclusively through Leo's observation, to mask its choppy torrent underneath, how the class boundary is preached and the lives of nobility starts to crumble. Equally unusual is the unforeseen insertion of scenes where an agedLeo (Redgrave) revisit Marion - it does baffle audience who is alien with the source novel, but it also creates an air of mystery and an overpowering solemnity which is beguilingly arresting.

The film is a four-times BAFTA winner (with 12 nominations in total) but only be able to generate one BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS nomination for Leighton (remember the great time when BAFTA doesn't condescend to a merely Oscar precursor?), who is menacingly persistent to disclose the scandal in the third act. Christie and Bates, barely sharing the same frame together (bar Ted's rendition when Marian comes to his succor as the musical company and their final tryst), yet both display their rough edges when facing Leo, their inhibited frustration finally finds an orifice on this wide-eyed outsider.

Dominic Guard as the young Leo, is literally the eyes of the film, perpetually frowning, bemused by the adult world he is too eager to comprehend, authentically guarantees Leo's greenness tallies with the outfit Marian bought for him. Edward Fox and Michael Gough complement the outstanding cast with a touch of dignified distinction running in their veins.

Truth to be told, THE GO-BETWEEN is neither an ode of genuine friendship, nor about a young boy's first crush, to me, Losey conceives this story as an innocence-lost process which every boy must undergo, a dispirited revelation of how adulthood is never as inspiring as he imagined. But overall, it occasionally tainted by the brunt of its narrative ellipsis, which would reach its detrimental apex in THE ROMANTIC ENGLISHWOMAN (1975, 4/10).

A gripping film, and often, thanks to cinematographer Gerry Fisher, also a beautiful one, with several stunning shots of the Norfolk countryside at harvest time.

Harold Pinter's screenplay, in adeptly interweaving present and past, anticipates by some thirty years work by Christopher Nolan (Memento) and by David Hare (The Hours). Pinter and director Losey also succeed in capturing the suffocating English class system.

Having never read L. P. Hartley's story on which the film is based, it's impossible for me to judge the extent of Pinter's faithfulness to it. On film, at least, I feel the finale doesn't quite come off, though I don't really know why. It may be because we don't really get to know the key character (SPOILER: it's Julie Christie's grandson, whom we see but never hear and don't get to know). The more significant revelation of the finale (another SPOILER) is that Michael Redgrave's character has been permanently scarred, emotionally blunted, by his childhood experiences as the message-bearer between Julie Christie's daughter of the manor and Alan Bates' rugged farmer. But, although Redgrave does his very best to suggest this, we have to take it on trust from Julie Christie's character - we never really get to know old Marcus. And of course to have built up any more of his life as an old man would have completely unbalanced the film, so the decision to keep it as oblique as possible was the right one. It just makes the end of the film rather unsatisfactory.

Nevertheless, the story set in the "foreign country" of the past is spectacularly well-told, and magnificently acted, not least by the excellent Dominic Guard as young Marcus - a great screen performance. Bates, Christie, Edward Fox, Michael Gough - all reliably fine.

As you sit watching the film, if you know anything about Margaret Leighton at all, you spend most of it wondering why this Rolls-Royce actress has been cast in what appears to be quite a small part. But then comes the climax of the film, and you realise why she's there. She's magnificent.

It's worth mentioning the obsessive score by Michel Legrand. For many, it won't work. I found it irritating to begin with, but in the end I was won over by it.

Not an unblemished masterpiece, then, but on the whole a compelling work of art.

When one hears the music from the Thomas Crown Affair, Summer of '42 and Yentl, its easy to understand why composer Michel Legrand has won three Oscars. I think for this film he had a really, really off-day. The strident piano music sounds like an attempt to harmonically illustrate the discord between the Leo's infatuation with the beautiful Marian, and the actuality of her coquettish behaviour. It's ridiculously unsubtle and becomes more and more tiresome as it repeats with almost every dramatic turn the film takes. The only other criticism is that some of flash forwards are very poorly lit and I can't see how this is for any particular dramatic effect. The cast is superb - Margaret Leighton well deserving her Oscar nomination, the dialogue is nicely balanced, the pace well-judged. Lovely film - really awful music.

I am amazed at the positive reviews of this film! I was really shocked by the way it seems to have been thrown together.The first jarring presence is the theme by Michel Legrand, whose score though being enigmatic is completely out of place and mismatched to the country home setting, it sounds like a spy theme and is reminiscent of the era's John Barry/Iprcress File. This main theme is irritatingly repeated over and over at the expense of badly needed expository dialogue. Where is the dialogue? The great Harold Pinter must've taken all of an afternoon to write it all - a pitiable effort for such a great book. We are instead treated to endlessly repeated shots of Leo running back and forth through he fields in long shot. Joseph Losey has used no supporting players, opting instead to use what looks like Norfolk locals (why?) who are hopeless in delivering the simplest of lines and so are in many cases, dubbed. There is no atmosphere! The actors don't inhabit the house at all- the sound and lighting is terrible! Unfortunately the bulk of the story requires child actors, Leo just about gets away with it but the actor playing Marcus is awful, many scenes are botched and left in the edit I can only assume they ran out of time. The big scenes of cricket match and party after, so important to the story are completely ruined by terrible editing. Why is Leo's song not more imaginatively realised? It would have helped the story so much. Also Trimingham is meant to be repulsive, making him handsome kills one of the most powerful motivations for Marian's behaviour. The major cast are good but lack direction and a decent script they loo lost half the time! Honestly, I could go on I am so disappointed in this treatment of an amazing book which everyone should read (hopefully they haven't seen this first). And yes, please, someone do a remake! Even Michael Bay could do it better.

Director Losey's final collaboration with Harold Pinter is 1971's The Go-Between, an adaptation of L. P. Hartley's novel of the same name. Like two of Losey's previous three collaborations with Pinter, the film critiques the British class system; it is a tragedy born out of snobbery. The Go-Between concerns an illicit and doomed relationship between Julie Christie's upper class Marian Maudsley, the daughter of the wealthy Maudsley family, with Alan Bates' tenant farmer Ted Burgess. Aware that their love affair is considered shameful and socially unacceptable, they conduct it in secret and it is gradually revealed via the point of view of Leo Colston, a middle-class boy who staying with the Maudsleys, having befriended their son Marcus at school. When Marcus falls ill, Leo befriends the older Marian and is asked to deliver letters between her and Ted. Gradually, both he and the audience realise that the letters are used to arrange meetings between the two lovers. Ultimately, the affair is doomed: when Leo is forced to lead Marian's formidable mother to a barn, she discovers her daughter having sex with Ted; in response to the shame, Ted commits suicide. So traumatised is Leo that he suppresses the memory and grows to adulthood alone, unable to form meaningful romantic relationships. Only later in life, when he is reunited with an elderly Marian and recognises her son as also being Ted's, does he finally realise that there was no shame in the love between the two of them. Pinter's screenplay remains more or less faithful to Hartley's novel and is an elegant script with fine characterisation, which admirably avoids sneering at the any of the characters. Leo is treated kindly by the Maudsley family, whilst the suitor intended for Marian - Edward Fox's Viscount Hugh Trimingham - is likeable and honourable (Although by contrast Leo's upper class friend Marcus - with whose family Leo stays - encourages him to leave his discarded clothes on the floor for servants to pick up - that is he says, after all, what servants are for). Pinter doesn't give us a world where the lives of two young people are ruined by the class system, but one in which everyone is constrained by it. The young Leo makes an effective protagonist, since Pinter impressively manages to show the events of the film from his point of view; not only does he not realise for a long time the true nature of Marian and Ted's relationship, he has yet to learn what sex is. Pinter also provides a slightly non-linear narrative, with the novel's final sequence featuring the older Leo increasingly interspersed with the main body of the film as it progresses, such that Leo's eventual reunion with Marian takes place within the film's prior structure prior to Ted's death. Losey assembled an impressive cast that includes Christie, Bates, Fox, Margaret Leighton and Michael Gough, and they all give predictable fine performances, especially Bates. Surrounded by such acting talent, then-newcomer Dominic Guard gives a creditable performance as Leo, the eponymous "go-between". When the innocent, well-meaning young boy finally reads one of the letters he has been carrying between Marian and Ted, Guard conveys how upset he is about the illicit relationship via several dialogue free scenes that rely on facial and physical acting and he gets a great scene with Bates when an angry Leo demands that Ted explains what a lover actually is. Michael Redgrave plays the older Leo with an air of hurt bewilderment at how his life has played out. Much has been made - quite rightly - of Losey's use of colour in the film, with the lush, verdant colours of the main part of the film giving way to the drab greys of the 1950s sequences; this is an incredibly beautiful film. The Norfolk location filming is sumptuous and cinematographer Gerry Fisher uses hand-held close-ups to bring the audience near to the characters. At times, the camera weaves in and out of the fixtures and fittings of Melton Constable Hall, which was used for the Maudsley house. High-angle and aerial shots look down on the characters as they go about their lives. We don't actually see Marian and Ted together until they are fatefully discovered by Marian's mother; everything else is implied and off-screen. Michel Legrand's soundtrack is dramatic and often unsettling, and Losey deliberately juxtaposes it often with otherwise peaceful scenes to create an unnerving atmosphere at odds with what we see on screen. For all that The Servant is a masterpiece, The Go-Between is perhaps the finest product of the all-too-brief working relationship between Losey and Harold Pinter.