Rent The Go-Between (1970)

Great band, great film. - The Go-Between review by Steve Mason

It's often said that great books make bad films but that is clearly untrue and here is a prime example. This is a wonderful adaptation of L.P. Hartley's classic memory novel, scripted by Losey's frequent collaborator, Harold Pinter. The story is set in 1900, so it is late Victoria but visually it creates what is now my image of Edwardian rural England, across the class divides. A boy spends the summer at a country estate passing illicit messages between Julie Christie's aristocratic beauty, and Alan Bates' earthy farmer. The boy, Leo is unable to understand the repercussions of the relationship he helps to prosper. It is a slow, languid film set in the long summer of our distant pasts against the grey, drizzly world of the grown up Leo's present reality. From where he understands the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Losey is another American who made his way to the UK to escape the scrutiny of HUAC and his filmography is like a red album of consistent hits (with Modesty Blaise his Yellow Submarine).