dpgmel

Yes, a wonderful evocation of a lost age.

TimR

This is a very well made and evocative film. I found it disturbing at the time; I couldn't sleep for several nights.

I was the age of the boy in it when I saw it and it really "got" to me. I still don't really know why. The atmosphere is filled with foreboding, while the setting is very beautful, as is Julie Christie. Her beauty was remarkable. I can still remember Margaret Leighton's face as she discovers the truth about Bates and Christie. It has been more than thirty years since I saw it, and I can still recall the impact.

"Home was never like this"

"Mine was"

batman

Well it would be ..... much of it was filmed here in the lovely county of Norfolk!

I'm the cutest bottom judge!

Keechelus

Often Harold Pinter is a spot-on adapter of a written work, sometimes he's close, and once in a long while he misses the point.

THE GO-BETWEEN was a long-awaited movie for us, and it nearly made the A rating. The acting is darn good, the filming by Gerry Fisher is triple-A perfect (summer Norfolk to a T!), but there is an emptiness in the story that Losey and his actors could not quite paper over.

Pardon my growl. Perhaps another few viewings will reveal more, and we'll come to love the movie. But for now I am a bit disappointed.

Excuse a brief rant: Pinter has let me down before, notably with his pedestrian adaptation of THE HANDMAID'S TALE (filmed in 1990, directed by Volker Schlondorff). The Margaret Atwood novel was chilling, provocative and realistically grim. Pinter's version was tepid bangers 'n mash, compared to Ms Atwood's fiery Vindaloo. Maybe not a good metaphor for a USA story set on the chilly border with Canada ... but that comes to mind.

rskershaw

This thread got a great International reply.

And what's all this about me having me leg off?

Colonel Blimp

I think I must have originally seen this on its first TV screening, on BBC1 on a Sunday night if I'm not mistaken! Anyway it finished too late so I only saw about half of it, and I was too young to appreciate it, but I too found it somewhat eerie for reasons I cannot explain ... I think much of this had to do with the truly wonderful score, amongst the greatest I've heard (but then I also love Richard Rodney Bennett's music for Billion Dollar Brain, which is one of those films you're not supposed to like but which I absolutely love!).

Seeing it now, it remains a strangely disturbing tale ... truly beautiful, on the surface at least ...

It's a shame the DVD is only 4:3 full frame, rather than the 16:9 promised on the cover ...

moonfleet

I don't know if Joseph Losey is considered as "british" director in Great Britain, but he is one I do like most.
Such great pictures are: The Criminal, The Servant, Accident, Boom, Secret Ceremony, Modesty Blaise, and for me above all is The Go-Between.....
It's a sad story in a way, because Leo, the little boy is hurt for life by what happened this summer (a hot one!). As a man (M.Redgrave), returning in Norfolk, you feel how he was "marked" by this part of his youth, and how he "missed" his life, maybe because of this......
He was a messenger for something he didn't understand, and that "pertubed" him a lot ; but no one cares. On contrary, the two women, mother and daughter happened to be very "hard" with him ( as if wearing a norfolk jacket in summer is not even enough !)
Beautiful scenes when J.Christie talks with Leo, when she plays piano with A.Bates singing.....
Moonfleet. ("the exercise was benefitial")

"Very difficult !" "Craazy!"

D Cairns

I wrote about it here:
“Nothing is ever a lady’s fault.” « SHADOWPLAY

AdrianTurner

I love The Go-Between - the music, the shoes clattering up the wooden staircase, the thrum of the Norfolk heat ("Warm weather suit you?"), the beauty of Christie, even though she is far too old, the perfection of Edward Fox ("Or Trimingham if you prefer"), and that whole Edwardian scene. BUT.

The ending is absolute rubbish, isn't it? It makes no sense at all. Why does Mrs Maudesley force Leo to the out-houses? What on earth is her motive? And what on earth is that last scene about? Christie saying, "I was Lady Trimingham, you see. There is no other." So who is the grandson? Why is he living at the Hall? Why isn't one of Maudesley's sons living there with his family? Did the Triminghams buy the Maudesleys out? It just makes no sense at all. The novel does rather clarify things - everyone dies in the war and of disease - but that's not the point. Pinter and Losey simply bungled it.

TimR

I haven't seen it in more than thirty years. I don't know how it would look now to me - at the time it was very disturbing. I would agree completely with the term "somewhat eerie for reasons I cannot explain". Usually I don't care for Pinter and his sinister interpretations of everyday events. But this was an exception.

"Home was never like this"

"Mine was"

TimR

I really should see it again. I do remember the film's ending was odd and confusing, but I think the whole film was odd. Mrs. Maudesley was a frightening character: so filled with not-so-suppressed rage that she seemed a little crazy. Margaret Leighton was so compelling that I can remember her performance vividly now, but she was very, very odd.

As for Julie Christie being "far too old".....

She was about 30 at the time and dazzling. The boy's infatuation with her and willingness to obey her is entirely believable. If she were less dazzling, it would not be.

"Home was never like this"

"Mine was"

AdrianTurner

In the novel, Miss Marion Maudesley is about 17.

TimR

Interesting article. You have a very well-designed blog.

What do you mean by "otherness"?

"Home was never like this"

"Mine was"

TimR

I don't know the book. If you are saying it is not faithful to the book, that is a fair point - but the age difference worked very well in the film. She was spectacular looking, but also remote and fascinating.

"Home was never like this"

"Mine was"

TomDaws

The score, by Michel Legrand, is my all-time favourite. When the film came out, several of the critics said the flash-forwards (rainy, gloomy 50s Norfolk, contrasting with the glorious summer of decades before) didn't work well. As far as I'm concerned they work wonderfully.