The Go-Between (1970) - film review

In the long hot summer of 1900, 12-year-old Leo Colston spends his holiday as a guest of his school friend Marcus Maudsley at the latter’s sprawling Norfolk estate.  Leo comes from a comparatively modest background and so he finds it hard to fit into the Maudsleys’ privileged way of life.  When Marcus is struck down with measles, Leo begins to take an interest in his older sister, Marian, and is coerced into delivering secret letters between her and a local farmer, Ted Burgess.  Leo’s growing unease over his role as an intermediary for the two lovers is accompanied by an increasing curiosity about the mysteries of sex, about which he knows absolutely nothing.  When he learns that Marian is to become engaged to a viscount, Hugh Trimington, Leo refuses to act as message boy any longer...

This superlative adaptation of L.P. Hartley’s classic novel marked the third and final collaboration of American film director Joseph Losey and British playwright Harold Pinter, who had previously worked together on The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967).  Beautifully photographed, with a lush palate that instantly evokes the period setting, The Go-Between is arguably Losey’s most lyrical and accessible film – a compelling coming-of-age drama that sensitively portrays an adolescent’s first traumatic encounter with sex. The film also offers a vivid account of the mores of the time in which the story is set, highlighting both the iniquity of the class system and the repressed lifestyle that the starched late Victorian society insisted upon, particularly for women.

The reason why The Go-Between is such a powerful film is because it tells a simple story which we can readily relate to our own experiences. We first see a perfect world of childhood innocence (one where you expect the theme to Black Beauty to come crashing through at any moment). It is a world of eternal green fields and blue skies, a world where grown-ups are easily codified as good or bad, and where dangers, where they exist, are easily identified (deadly nightshade, for instance). There are no hidden threats, no sordid undercurrents. Everything is child’s play. But then it changes. Gradually, this perfect romantic idyll is transformed into the dark grubby world of adult experience, as the central character Leo makes the painful transition into adolescence.  Most of us look back on our childhood as a time of endless summers and blissful innocence, which ends with spectacular abruptness when the hormones kick in during our Hellish thirteenth year.  The film captures this devastating moment of metamorphosis, this expulsion from the Eden of childhood, with pathos and exquisite simplicity, in a way that any spectatator can identity with.

Whilst Losey and his cinematographer Gerry Fisher are responsible for much of the film’s impact, Pinter’s work on the script is also commendable, as is the contribution from the high calibre cast, which is headed by stars Julie Christie and Alan Bates.  Making his film debut was Dominic Guard, who won a BAFTA (in the most promising newcomer category) for his portrayal of the instantly likeable young Leo; he went on to play the part of the young Huw Morgan in the acclaimed 1976 BBC TV production of How Green Was My Valley.   The film won three other BAFTAs – including best screenplay and awards for Edward Fox and Margaret Leighton.   It also won the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1971.   Although it is not as widely appreciated as some of Joseph Losey’s other films, The Go-Between deserves to be considered one of his major achievements – a delicately crafted and intensely poignant rendition of a great work of English literature.

© James Travers 2009

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