The Go-Between (1971)

Wonderful character development!

Best movie ever!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

In 1900 Norfolk, England, twelve-year-old Dominic Guard (as Leo Colston) goes to spend the summer at the beautiful country estate of blond school chum Richard Gibson (as Marcus Maudsley). The lads have fun wrestling while young Mr. Guard gets to know his pal's family. His chief interest is young Mr. Gibson's alluring sister Julie Christie (as Marian). An extremely beautiful woman, Ms. Christie arouses those "coming of age" feelings in Guard. She makes a "fuss" over Guard, dressing a knee wound and buying him a new suit. While Gibson is bedridden with measles, Guard is coerced into delivering love notes as "The Go-Between" for Christie and hunky neighboring farmer Alan Bates (as Ted Burgess)...But, Christie is engaged to Edward Fox (as Hugh Trimingham), a member of her own social class. As Guard experiences his own sexual awakenings, he becomes conflicted about continuing to deliver the love notes, especially as he genuinely likes Christie and both of the men she is involved with. This story of sex and class has some major problems - like the underwritten villainess played by Margaret Leighton, the parallel witchcraft being practiced by the protagonist, and the sputtering "flash-forward" ending. But, "The Go-Between" is a spectacular-looking film, with cinematographer Gerry Fisher and the crew making it well worth eyeing - and Joseph Losey leads Guard and his co-stars to fine performances.******* The Go-Between (12/70) Joseph Losey ~ Dominic Guard, Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Richard Gibson

In the English countryside of 1900, a boy serves as a messenger between a young woman from a rich family who is engaged to be married to a viscount and a neighbor farmer of lower standing, facilitating a forbidden love affair. Like "Picnic at Hanging Rock," this is a very deliberately paced film where nothing much happens. The main point of interest is the atmosphere, marked by beautiful cinematography. However, with characters who are not terribly interesting and without much of a plot, the film really overstays its welcome at a running time of two hours. The acting is fine all around, including Christie and Bates in the lead roles of the lovers.

When one hears the music from the Thomas Crown Affair, Summer of '42 and Yentl, its easy to understand why composer Michel Legrand has won three Oscars. I think for this film he had a really, really off-day. The strident piano music sounds like an attempt to harmonically illustrate the discord between the Leo's infatuation with the beautiful Marian, and the actuality of her coquettish behaviour. It's ridiculously unsubtle and becomes more and more tiresome as it repeats with almost every dramatic turn the film takes. The only other criticism is that some of flash forwards are very poorly lit and I can't see how this is for any particular dramatic effect. The cast is superb - Margaret Leighton well deserving her Oscar nomination, the dialogue is nicely balanced, the pace well-judged. Lovely film - really awful music.

Richly-detailed period romantic drama, told more or less from a child's viewpoint but treated with the maturity one has come to expect from a Losey film (the main plot is interspersed with fragmented clips of the boy as an old man - played by Sir Michael Redgrave - revisiting the aristocratic country estate where the majority of the narrative takes place).Though the characters are rather swamped by their surroundings (the two leads are particularly subdued) - as captured by the gleaming cinematography of Gerry Fisher and the elegant décor of Carmen Dillon - the film allows for several good performances from a sturdy cast, including Dominic Guard (as the boy Leo who acts as messenger in the impossible love between upper-class Julie Christie and commoner Alan Bates, both of whom he idolizes), Edward Fox (as Christie's intended, a war-hero), as well as Margaret Leighton and Michael Gough (as her parents); Leighton's role remains in the background for most of the time but, then, she asserts herself during the last third to bring down the couple's relationship - with the unwilling assistance of the bewildered Guard. Besides, Michel Legrand contributes an atypically ominous yet haunting score.This was the third and last time Losey and screenwriter Harold Pinter worked together, constituting a very fruitful and quite extraordinary collaboration; for about two-thirds of its length, the film finds Losey somewhere near his best - the contemporary subplot where Leo reprises his 'services' for an older Christie works less well, in my opinion (and is too sketchily presented anyway), rendering an already deliberately-paced film somewhat overlong! THE GO-BETWEEN won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, was nominated for an impressive 12 BAFTA awards (winning 4) but received only 1 Oscar nomination (for Leighton as Best Supporting Actress).