The Go-Between ***** (1971, Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Dominic Guard, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave) – Classic Movie Review 2213

Director Joseph Losey and his screenwriter Harold Pinter together fashion this most ravishing and touching 1971 film out of L P Hartley’s marvellous, delicate novel about the divided loyalties of a young boy (Dominic Guard) who, while holidaying in the summer of 1900 in Norfolk, runs errands as a go-between for an English lady (Julie Christie) and her farmer lover (Alan Bates). It was the proud winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971 and scored four Bafta awards, namely Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Edward Fox),  Best Supporting Actress (Margaret Leighton) and Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles (Dominic Guard).

The 13-year-old Leo (Guard) is the guest of wealthy classmate Marcus (Richard Gibson) at a grand home in rural Norfolk, where he is befriended by Marcus’s beautiful 20something sister Marian (Christie). She is about to be engaged to viscount Hugh (Edward Fox) but asks Leo to carry romantic messages to and from their neighbour, Ted Burgess (Bates).

Losey draws out eloquent, reined-in, perfect 1900  period-style performances from the stars, as well as Margaret Leighton, Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actress as Christie’s sharp and imperious mother Mrs Maudsley, Michael Gough as her tolerant, sleepy father Mr Maudsley, Edward Fox as the Viscount Hugh Trimingham and Michael Redgrave, who mistily plays the boy Leo Colston grown into old age.

The movie is magically evocative, conjuring up of a long vanished world, with a miniaturist’s attention to the meaning of a glance or a vocal inflection and to the accuracy of the period artefacts. The Norfolk countryside is beautifully photographed in Gerry Fisher’s radiant cinematography. Losey’s achievement is way above the usual run of British heritage cinema pictures, then or now.

Dominic Guard gave up acting in 2000 and now works as a qualified child psychotherapist.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2213

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