The Go-Between (1971 film)

In 1900, twelve-year-old Leo Colston is invited to spend his summer holiday at Brandham Hall, the Norfolk country house of his wealthy school friend, Marcus Maudsley. Upon arriving at the house, the middle-class Leo finds himself out of place among the upper class; his hosts, particularly Marcus's older sister Marian, try to make him feel welcome. Leo soon develops a crush on the beautiful Marian, who dotes on the boy and buys him new clothes.

Marcus becomes ill with the measles and has to stay quarantined in his bedroom, leaving Leo to entertain himself. While exploring the estate grounds, Leo wanders to a nearby farm and injures himself playing in one of the haystacks. Tenant farmer Ted Burgess tends to Leo's injury, asking the boy if he can bring a letter to Marian for him in return. Leo agrees and after he gives Marian the letter, she begs him to take another letter back to Ted. Leo becomes the regular messenger between Marian and Ted, who are engaged in a clandestine affair. Leo remains innocent about the proceedings and believes he is merely carrying secret messages between friends.

Marian is not free to marry Ted; she is being courted by Hugh, Viscount Trimingham, the estate heir whom her parents want her to marry. One day, Leo sneaks a look at one of the letters Marian has entrusted him with. Leo is shocked and upset when he realizes it is a love note. Marian's engagement to Hugh is announced and Leo is relieved, thinking this means his messenger duties will no longer be needed. Marian and Ted continue their affair and proceed to rely on Leo as a go-between, much to the boy's worry and confusion. When Leo declines to carry a letter for Marian, she scolds him. Leo writes to his mother asking if he can come home sooner than planned because he has overstayed his welcome; his mother responds that it would be rude to the Maudsleys if he left early.

The day of Leo's thirteenth birthday party is marked by a record heatwave. Tensions between Marian and Leo have subsided, and she asks the youth to deliver another letter to Ted for her. Leo refuses and the two playfully chase each other outside. Madeleine, Marian's mother, sees them and inquires what the fuss is about. She spots the letter, but Marian lies and says she is sending Leo to deliver a letter to her former nanny, which Leo goes along with. Madeleine, suspecting Marian's affair, goes to speak alone with Leo. She prods the boy to show her the letter, but he claims he has lost it.

During Leo's birthday dinner that evening, a thunderstorm breaks out. All of the Maudsley family members are at the dinner table to partake in the festivities, except for Marian. Though some family members insist on waiting for her, Madeleine loses her patience and goes to look for Marian herself, taking Leo along with her. She takes him to Ted's farm, where Marian and Ted are discovered having sex in the barn. The event has a long-lasting impact on Leo, as it is revealed that after he was caught with Marian, Ted shot and killed himself in his farmhouse kitchen.

Fifty years later, Leo has returned to Brandham Hall a jaded, disillusioned man. In the years since, he has shut down his imaginative and emotional nature, making him unable to establish intimate relationships. He meets with the elderly Marian, now the Dowager Lady Trimingham, who is living in her former nanny's cottage. Leo learns that Marian went on to marry Hugh as planned but bore Ted's son. Hugh eventually acknowledged Ted's son as his own, before dying in 1910. Marian's son in turn died in the Second World War. Marian has become estranged from her grandson because of the scandal of his parentage, so she has once again sent for Leo as a go-between to help repair their relationship and inform her grandson that she did truly love Ted. Leo leaves to embark on his final errand for Marian.

{{castlist|

• Julie Christie as Marian Maudsley (later Lady Trimingham)
• Edward Fox as Viscount Trimingham
• Alan Bates as Ted Burgess
• Margaret Leighton as Mrs. Maudsley
• Dominic Guard as Leo Colston
• Michael Redgrave as adult Leo Colston
• Michael Gough as Mr. Maudsley
• Richard Gibson as Marcus Maudsley
• Simon Hume-Kendall as Denys
• Roger Lloyd-Pack as Charles
• Amaryllis Garnett as Kate

}}

The rights to the novel had been in the hands of many producers, including Anthony Asquith. Then Sir Alexander Korda purchased it in 1956. He envisioned Alec Guinness and Margaret Leighton in the leads and employed Nancy Mitford to write a script. Hartley later said Korda had no intention to make a film of the book; he kept the rights hoping to re-sell them at a profit. Hartley says "I was so annoyed when I heard of this that I put a curse on him and he died, almost the next morning."

Joseph Losey was interested in filming the novel. He tried to get financing for a version in 1963 after filming The Servant and said Pinter had written "two-thirds of a script,{{cite news|title=Mann's 'Venice' Bought — Pinter's Projects — 'New' Theater |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/16/archives/view-from-a-local-vantage-point-manns-venice-bought-pinters.html |date=16 February 1964 |page=X7 |access-date=13 October 2023}} but could not find the money to make the film either then or at a second attempt in 1968.

"The company had cold feet about the story", said Losey. "It was too tame for the pornographic age. As one man put it, who would be interested in a bit of Edwardian nostalgia? That's idiotic. It is certainly not a romantic or sentimental piece. It has a surface and a coating of romantic melodrama, but it has a bitter core."

Losey said he was attracted to the novel because it was about "the terrible sense of shortness of any human life, the sense of totality of life."{{cite news|title=Director proves them all wrong |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=7 August 1971 |page=8}}

Pinter's screenplay for the film was his final collaboration with Losey, following The Servant (1963), and Accident (1967).{{harvnb|Callahan|2003}}: "The Go-Between (1971), his last collaboration with Pinter is also his last great film…" It is largely faithful to the novel, but it alludes to the novel's opening events in dialogue, in which Leo is admired by other boys at his school as they believe he used black magic to punish two bullies, and it moves events described in the novel's epilogue into the central narrative.{{cite news|title=Take Three on The Go-Between|newspaper=The Guardian|date= 16 March 1971|page= 8}}

Losey later said he was glad he and Pinter did not make the film until after Accident because that film encouraged them to experiment with time in storytelling.

Eventually John Heyman managed to get financing from EMI Films, where Bryan Forbes agreed to pay £75,000 for the script.{{sfn|Forbes|1993|p=100}} Nat Cohen at EMI also took credit for developing the film.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-nat-cohen-part-four-cohen-vs-bryan-forbes-1969-71/|magazine=Filmink|access-date=24 January 2025|date=24 January 2025|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|title=Forgotten British Moguls – Nat Cohen Part Four: Cohen vs Bryan Forbes (1969-71)}} Bernard Delfont claims "for some reason the treatment came to me initially and I passed it on to Bruan with a heartfelt recommendation to give it priority.{{cite book|last=Delfont|first=Bernard|title=East End, West End: An Autobiography|publisher=MacMillan|year=1990|page=186}}

Because of the relatively steep budget, EMI had to seek co-production financing from MGM. Losey budgeted the film for $2.4 million but had to make it for $1.2 million; he did this by cutting the shooting schedule by a month and working for a percentage of the profits instead of a fee.Walker, Alexander (1974). Hollywood UK{{spaced ndash}} The British Film Industry in the Sixties. Stein and Day. p. 439. {{ISBN|978-0-812-81549-8}}.{{cite news|title=Losey Revels in Happy 'Go-Between'|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/11/archives/losey-revels-in-happy-gobetween.html|first=Mel|last=Gussow|newspaper=The New York Times|date= 11 August 1971|page= 44}}{{cite journal |title=Hollywood Exile: An Interview With Joseph Losey |last=Phillips |first=Gene D. |journal=Journal of Popular Film |location=Washington, D.C. |volume=5 |issue=1 |date=1 January 1976 |page=29|doi=10.1080/00472719.1976.10661792 }}

In July 1970, MGM-EMI announced it would make the film as part of four co-productions; the others were Get Carter (1971), The Boy Friend (1971) and The Last Run (1971) directed by John Boorman.{{cite news|title=Spectrum of Interest: Film Notes |first=Gary |last=Arnold |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=15 July 1970 |page=B5}}

Filming started in August 1970.{{cite news|title=Michele Carey Signs for 'Scandalous' Role

|last=Martin |first=Betty |work=Los Angeles Times |date=31 August 1970 |page=c17}} The film was shot at Melton Constable Hall, Heydon and Norwich in Norfolk.{{cite web|url=http://www.oldcity.org.uk/norwich/film/gobetween.php |title=The Go-Between: EMI Films 1970 |website=oldcity.org.uk |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050113132855/http://www.oldcity.org.uk/norwich/film/gobetween.php |archive-date=2005-01-13 |url-status=dead}} Filming was completed that November.{{cite news|title=Time to Go for 'Go-Between' Cast |last=Blume |first=Mary |work=Los Angeles Times |date=15 November 1970 |page=v31}}

Pinter was on set during filming. Losey said the making of the film was one of the happier in his career. Dominic Guard struggled with a stammer that made his delivering his lines impossible at times and that caused him to develop nervous tics. Losey dealt with this problem by coaching Guard and telling him he had faith in him, but in "a rather brutal way" by telling him to stop whenever Guard was using a tic or stammer.{{cite video| url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SvzxfVVGfo |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211213/4SvzxfVVGfo |archive-date=2021-12-13 |url-status=live| title=The Go-Between – Interview with Dominic Guard |publisher=StudioCanal UK| via=YouTube | date=2020-09-08| access-date=2020-09-11}}{{cbignore}}

{{ box quote|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk|fontsize=100%|salign=center|quote= “Michel Legrand’s driving music for The Go-Between is one of the all-time best film scores, as important in its way as Bernard Herrmann’s score for Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958)—it adds emotion where it is sorely needed.”— Critic Dan Callahan in Senses of Cinema{{sfn|Callahan|2003}}}}

Richard Rodney Bennett was announced as the composer.{{cite news|title=Movie Call Sheet |work=Los Angeles Times |date=6 October 1970 |page=D15}} However Bennett's score was rejected and Michel Legrand ended up composing the score for the film. The main theme later was used as the title music for the French "true crime" documentary series Faites entrer l'accusé (in French Wikipedia).Compare the movie's {{YouTube|3Q-194i7mM8|main theme}} with {{YouTube|j9rYdeoU-wg|the one for the French crime series}}. The score was also adapted and re-orchestrated by Marcelo Zarvos for Todd Haynes' film May December.{{Cite magazine |url= https://ew.com/movies/may-december-natalie-portman-julianne-moore-may-kay-letourneau-douglas-sirk-inspirations/ |title= How Todd Haynes' May December channeled Mary Kay Letourneau and classic female melodramas |magazine= Entertainment Weekly |date= September 26, 2023 |url-status= live |access-date= December 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231117163845/https://ew.com/movies/may-december-natalie-portman-julianne-moore-may-kay-letourneau-douglas-sirk-inspirations/ |archive-date=November 17, 2023 }}

The love theme "I Still See You", written by Legrand with lyrics by Hal Sharper, was performed by Scott Walker and released as a single in late 1971.

The film was first shown in May 1971 at the Cannes Film Festival, and it won the Grand Prix International du Festival.{{Cite web|url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/films/the-go-between |title=The Go-Between |access-date=17 June 2017 |website=Cannes Film Festival}} A few days before, James Aubrey, head of MGM, disliked the final film and regarded it a flop.{{sfn|Forbes|1993|p=221}}

The film was released in the UK on 24 September 1971, opening at ABC1 on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.{{cite news|work=The Times |date=24 September 1971 |page=9 |title=The Shadows of a Country-House Summer |last=Taylor |first=John Russell |author-link=John Russell Taylor}} A month later, on 29 October, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother arrived at the ABC Cinema on Prince of Wales Road in Norwich to attend the local premiere, thus giving Norwich its first royal premiere.{{cite web|url=http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/154151 |work=East Anglian Film Archive |title=Anglia News: Queen Mother at Premiere of 'The Go-Between' at ABC Norwich |access-date=2014-01-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111202418/https://eafa.org.uk/catalogue/154151 |archive-date=2014-01-11 |url-status=dead |quote=At the royal screening, both Harold Pinter and L. P. Hartley were presented to HM the Queen Mother by Bernard Delfont}}{{sfn|Hartop|2011|pp=62, 63}}

EMI sold this movie and Tales of Beatrix Potter to China for release at $16,000 each. They were the first western films to be released in China for two decades.{{cite news|title=EMI of Britain Sells Red China Two Movies For Release to Public: Films Will Be First From West to Receive Wide Exposure There in Over Two Decades |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=13 January 1972 |page=17}}

The inaugural screening of a new restoration of the film released by StudioCanal UK took place at Cinema City, Norwich on 11 September 2019.

By August 1971, Nat Cohen stated the film had already been "contracted" for $1 million.{{cite news|first=Nat |last=Cohen |title=British film finance |work=The Times |location=London, England |date=20 August 1971 |page=13}} The film was one of the most popular movies of 1972 at the British box office.{{cite book|page=270|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NTmrBgAAQBAJ&q=guinness+book+of+box+office+hits+swern+childs&pg=PA268|title=British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure |first=Sue|last= Harper|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|date= 2011|isbn = 9780748654260}} By September 1972, James Aubrey of MGM said the film lost Columbia $200,000, but he insisted that selling the film had been the right move.{{Cite news|title=How now, Dick Daring?|first=Martin|last= Kasindorf|newspaper= The New York Times|date=10 September 1972|page=SM54 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/10/archives/how-now-dick-daring.html |access-date=19 December 2023}} In 1973 Losey said the film was still not in profit.{{cite news|title=Losey on 'broken promises'|newspaper=The Guardian|date= 1 August 1973|page= 6}}

According to a biography of Losey, after 18 months of release, the net takings in the UK were £232,249. At 1 July 1972, Columbia's territories had earned $2,198,382, including $1,581,972 in the U.S. and Canada. Ten years after its premiere. the film had earned £290,888 from UK cinemas and TV, £204,566 from overseas sales (excluding the U.S.), £96,599 from the British Film Fund, and Columbia's gross receipts in the U.S., Canada and France were £1,375,300. Losey's personal percentage of film's box office was £39,355. So in the end, the film was quite profitable.{{sfn|Caute|1994|p=277}}

In 1994 Forbes claimed the film had made a profit.{{cite web|url=https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/bryan-forbes|website=British Entertainment History Project |title=Interview with Bryan Forbes|first=Roy|last=Fowler|date=9 August 1994|access-date=2 August 2024}}

Delfont called wrote "the film was sher joy... not by any means a blockbuster but it was lavishly praised by the critics and warmly received by the sort of audiences who had almost given up their local cinema as a lost cause."

In The New York Times, Vincent Canby described the film as "one of the loveliest, and one of the most perfectly formed, set and acted films we're likely to see this year".{{Cite news |last=Canby |first=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Canby |date=July 30, 1971 |title=Screen |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/30/archives/views-of-a-freudian-classic-and-an-arctic-venture-julie-christie.html |access-date=2023-12-20}} Roger Ebert awarded the film 3 and ½ stars out of 4, praising the production detail and Losey and Pinter's attention to the "small nuances of class".{{cite news |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |author1-link=Roger Ebert |title=The Go-Between |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-go-between-1971 |access-date=19 December 2023 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |via=RogerEbert.com |date=January 1, 1971}} Ebert did criticize the film's use of flashforwards near the end, expressing that they prematurely give away the ending. In The Village Voice, Andrew Sarris praised the film's cast, period detail, and camera work.{{cite news |last=Sarris |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Sarris |date=12 August 1971 |title=Films in Focus |pages=43, 46 |work=The Village Voice |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VslHAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7YsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6528%2C2607595 |access-date=2023-12-20}} However, Sarris also found issue with the film's incorporation of flashforward scenes, which he said made for a jarring, unnecessarily convoluted narrative. He further expressed that some crucial details from Hartley's book are lost in the transition to the screen.

{{box quote|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk|fontsize=100%|salign=center|quote= "It is fantastic the degree to which the English class structure influences practically every Englishman's life, either in rebellion against it, or acceptance of it, or simply through their being gotten at by it without realizing it, and sometimes whilst violently protesting that they're not.” - Joseph Losey in The Cinema of Joseph Losey.{{sfn|Maras|2012}}}}

Writing in 1985, Joanne Klein saw the filmscript "as a major stylistic and technical advance in Pinter’s work for the screen", and Foster Hirsch described it as "one of the world’s great films" in 1980.

• {{cite journal|title=Harold Pinter's The Go-Between: The Courage To Be |first=Christopher C. |last=Hudgins |journal=Cycnos |volume=14 |issue=1 |date=11 June 2008 |url=http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1238}}
• {{sfn|Hirsch|1980|p=[https://archive.org/details/josephlosey0000hirs/page/136 136]}}
• {{cite book |title=Making Pictures: the Pinter Screenplays |last=Klein |first=Joanne |publisher=Ohio State University Press |year=1985 |page=102 |oclc=11676189 |isbn=9780814204009 |url=https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Complete%20PDFs/klein_pictures/klein_pictures.htm}} In 2009, Emanuel Levy called the film "Losey's masterpiece".{{cite web |last=Levy |first=Emanuel |author-link=Emanuel Levy |date=13 November 2009 |title=Go-Between (1971): Losey's Masterpiece Starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates |url=http://emanuellevy.com/review/go-between-the-1971-2/ |website=EmanuelLevy.com}}

Robert Maras at the World Socialist Web Site called The Go-Between "[A] devastating critique of bourgeois morality and the British social order."{{sfn|Maras|2012}}

On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, The Go-Between has an approval rating of 100% collected from 11 reviews, with an average score of 8.6/10.{{cite web |title=The Go-Between |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gobetween |website=Rotten Tomatoes |access-date=20 December 2023}}

Filmink argued the movie "seemed to inspire a lot of Australian period movies in the 1970s."

Leighton earned her only Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film. In 1999, The Go-Between was included on the British Film Institute's list of its 100 best British films.{{Cite web |date=1999-09-23 |title=Best 100 British films - full list |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/455170.stm |access-date=2023-12-20 |website=BBC News}} It was one of the most successful films from Bryan Forbes' time at EMI.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/cold-streaks-the-studio-stewardship-of-bryan-forbes-at-emi/|magazine=Filmink|title=Cold Streaks: The Studio Stewardship of Bryan Forbes at EMI|first= Stephen|last= Vagg|date=October 10, 2021}}

• BFI Top 100 British films
• 1971 in film
• List of British films of 1971
• Bibliography for Harold Pinter

{{clear}}

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• {{cite book|last=Billington |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Billington (critic) |year=1997 |title=The Life and Work of Harold Pinter |edition=2nd |location=London |publisher=Faber and Faber |isbn=978-0-571-23476-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeworkofharo00bill}}
• {{cite magazine|last=Callahan |first=Dan |date=March 2003 |magazine=Senses of Cinema |title=Losey, Joseph |number=25 |url=https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/losey/ |access-date=12 October 2024}}
• {{Cite book|title=Joseph Losey |last=Caute |first=David| year=1994 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195064100 }}
• {{cite book|last=Forbes |first=Bryan |author-link=Bryan Forbes |year=1993 |title=A Divided Life{{spaced ndash}} Memoirs |publisher=Mandarin Publishing |isbn=978-0-749-30884-1}}
• {{cite book|editor-last=Gale |editor-first=Steven H. |year=2001 |title=The Films of Harold Pinter |location=Albany, New York |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=978-0-791-44931-8}}
• {{cite book|last=Gale |first=Steven H. |year=2003 |title=Sharp Cut{{spaced ndash}} Harold Pinter's Screenplays and the Artistic Process |location=Lexington, Kentucky |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-813-12244-1}}
• {{cite book|title=Norfolk Summer: Making The Go-Between |last=Hartop |first=Christopher |url=http://norfolksummer.co.uk |year=2011 |location=Cambridge |publisher=John Adamson |isbn=978-1-898565-07-9}}
• {{cite book|last=Hirsch |first=Foster |author-link=Foster Hirsch |year=1980 |title=Joseph Losey |publisher=Twayne Publishers |location=Boston, Massachusetts |isbn=0-8057-9257-0}}
• {{cite web|last=Maras |first=Robert |title=Dissecting class relations: The film collaborations of Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter |website=World Socialist Web Site |date=May 28, 2012 |url= https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/05/lose-m28.html |access-date= 12 October 2024}}
• {{cite book|last1=Palmer |first1=James |first2=Michael |last2=Riley |year=1993 |title=The Films of Joseph Losey |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, England |isbn=0-521-38386-2}}

• [https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between The Go-Between] at the British Film Institute [https://web.archive.org/web/20160307104401/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b71f7b16c/ Archived]
• {{Screenonline title|453435|The Go-Between}}
• {{IMDb title|0067144|The Go-Between}}
• [http://www.haroldpinter.org/films/films_gobetween.shtml HaroldPinter.org: Films by Harold Pinter - The Go Between]

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{{Pinter}}

{{Palme d'Or 1960-1979}}

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Category:1971 films

Category:1971 romantic drama films

Category:British romantic drama films

Category:British coming-of-age drama films

Category:1970s coming-of-age drama films

Category:1970s English-language films

Category:English-language romantic drama films

Category:Films about families

Category:Films about interclass romance

Category:Films about social class

Category:Films about suicide

Category:Films based on British novels

Category:Films directed by Joseph Losey

Category:Films scored by Michel Legrand

Category:Films with screenplays by Harold Pinter

Category:Films set in 1900

Category:Films set in country houses

Category:Films set in Norfolk

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Category:Films set in the 1950s

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Category:1970s British films