Joseph Losey-The Go-Between (1970)

Summer 1900: Queen Victoria's last and the summer Leo turns 13. He's the guest of Marcus, a wealthy classmate, at a grand home in rural Norfolk. Leo is befriended by Marian, Marcus's twenty-something sister, a beauty about to be engaged to Hugh, a viscount and good fellow. Marian buys Leo a forest-green suit, takes him on walks, and asks him to carry messages to and from their neighbor, Ted Burgess, a bit of a rake. Leo is soon dissembling, realizes he's betraying Hugh, but continues as the go-between nonetheless, asking adults naive questions about the attractions of men and women. Can an affair between neighbors stay secret for long? And how does innocence end? Optimum Releasing




The delicate story of a young boy's adoration for a beautiful young woman, and of his involvement in her love affair with one of her father's tenant farmers. Based on the novel by L.P. Hartley and screenplay by Harold Pinter. (amazon.com)




Writer Harold Pinter and director Joseph Losey always hoped to make an adaptation of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Their version of L.P. Hartley's novel The Go-Between offers tantalising hints as to how the Proust film might have turned out. An old man (Michael Redgrave) thinks back to a summer many years before when, as a young boy, he stayed with the aristocratic Maudsley family in their beautiful house in the Norfolk countryside. (--Geoffrey Macnab - Amazon.co.uk Review)




On the threshold of adolescence, intensely curious about sex, he became the go-between for Marian Maudsley (Julie Christie) and local farmer Ted Burgess (Alan Bates) as they conducted an affair behind the backs of the Maudsley family. (--Geoffrey Macnab - Amazon.co.uk Review)




This is a slow-moving but beguiling story of lost innocence. There's a subtlety and intelligence here rarely found in British costume dramas. The filmmakers go to enormous lengths to recreate Edwardian England, but never allow the period detail to stifle the storytelling. Although life with the Maudsleys seems idyllic--an endless round of picnics, cricket matches and parties--there is always an undercurrent of violence. (--Geoffrey Macnab - Amazon.co.uk Review)




The Maudsleys are inveterate snobs. The terrifying Mrs Maudsley (played by Margaret Leighton) simply can't countenance the idea that her daughter would have an affair with a man so far beneath her on the social scale as Burgess. The little boy carries the messages between the lovers without ever quite understanding how explosive their contents are. (--Geoffrey Macnab - Amazon.co.uk Review)