The source novel, (obviously inspired by Lawrence's more carnal "Lady Chatterley's Lover") I had read a year or so ago on holiday and thoroughly enjoyed so it was with much anticipation that I settled down at last to watch this celebrated adaptation by American exile Joseph Losey, with its top-notch British cast. I wasn't disappointed. To the best of my recollection, the film is very true to the novel, only slightly modifying the epilogue-type ending by introducing the years-later reunion of Marion and Leo in teasingly inserted sequences which initially might confuse the casual viewer. The main theme of the movie, to my mind is the corruption of innocence as the adults in the world of naive young outsider Leo, take advantage of his susceptibility and willingness to please, not to mention his pubescent fascination with physical love, to use him as an unwitting pawn in their adult games of deception and lust. Thus we learn at the conclusion that Leo has never married or, even, by inference, enjoyed any kind of natural relationship with a woman, thus is his trust and innocence abused for all time.The film of course also comments tellingly on snobbery, class division and heroism in between-the-wars England but in the end its most important facet is the interplay of the four main characters, Marion, Ted Burgess, Lord Trillingham and of course young Leo, as the film moves inexorably towards its predictably tragic ending. The acting is generally very good, especially the main female parts played by Julie Christie and Margaret Leighton as errant daughter and suspicious mother respectively. The male acting I was slightly less enamoured of, Alan Bates failing to me to really suggest the rough physicality which draws Marion away from the safe, arranged, matrimonial match offered by the affable jolly good chap, Lord Trillingham, well played by a young Edward Fox. The young actor playing Leo, acts his part very well although the scenes with his young school-friend, Marion's younger brother, are a bit strained and accordingly unconvincing. The direction I found largely well-paced, although one or two short interludes seemed unnecessary in the editing and occasionally the frightfully, frightfully accents of the cast grated somewhat. Harold Pinter's screenplay stays properly close to its source and is less noticeably Pinter-ian than I would have expected, not too many characteristic pregnant pauses or repetitions. The climax (sorry, no pun intended) in the barn was effectively led up to and delivered. I did however find the music by Michel Legrand lacked a little subtlety, out of kilter with the delicate emotions on display here and also lacking the required pastoral touch. On the whole though this was a rewarding and entrancing movie, as good a classic book adaptation as you could hope to see and probably a precursor of Merchant-Ivory's success later in the decade.
Review of The Go-Between
