The Go-Between

The Go-Between is a 1971 British period drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Its screenplay by Harold Pinter is an adaptation of the 1953 novel The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley. The film stars Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave and Dominic Guard. It won the Palme d'Or at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. Plot The story follows a young boy named Leo Colston, who in the year 1900, is a guest of Marcus Maudsley, his wealthy school friend, as Leo spend the summer holidays at his family's Norfolk country house. While there, Marcus becomes sick, and he is quarantined with the measles. Left to entertain himself, Leo befriends Marcus's beautiful elder sister Marian Maudsley, and finds himself a messenger, carrying messages between her and Ted Burgess, a tenant farmer, with whom she is engaging in a clandestine affair. Marian's parents, however, want her to marry Hugh, Viscount Trimingham, the estate owner, who also is courting Marian. A heat wave leading to a thunderstorm coincides with Leo's thirteenth birthday party and the film's climax when Marian's mother Madeleine forces Leo to take her to Marian, and they find her making love to Burgess in a farm building. This event has a long-lasting impact on Leo after Burgess shoots and kills himself in his farmhouse kitchen. More than 50 years later, Marian, now the Dowager Lady Trimingham, sends for Leo, wanting him to speak to her grandson to assure him that she did truly love Burgess. She asks Leo whether her grandson reminds him of anyone, and he replies "Yes. Ted Burgess".