# The Go-Between (1971 film)
*The Go-Between* is a 1971 British period drama directed by Joseph Losey, written by [Harold Pinter](https://www.edgepedia.org/harold-pinter), and adapted from [L. P. Hartley](https://www.edgepedia.org/l-p-hartley)'s 1953 novel of the same name. It tells the story of a schoolboy who, during the summer of 1900 on a Norfolk estate, carries secret love letters between an aristocratic young woman and a tenant farmer, and it won the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor) at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between) • [2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2020/palme-dor-the-1970s/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer | Joseph Losey; screenplay by Harold Pinter, from L. P. Hartley's 1953 novel[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between) |
| Principal cast | Julie Christie (Marian), Alan Bates (Ted Burgess), Dominic Guard (young Leo), Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave (the adult Leo), Edward Fox[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between) • [3](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/80728--the-go-between/) |
| Top award | Palme d'Or ([Grand Prix](https://www.edgepedia.org/grand-prix-cannes-film-festival)), Cannes Film Festival, May 1971[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2020/palme-dor-the-1970s/) • [4](https://epi-revel.univ-cotedazur.fr/cycnos/542.pdf) |
| British awards | BAFTA awards including Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Edward Fox), Best Supporting Actress (Margaret Leighton), and Outstanding Newcomer (Dominic Guard)[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/54194-THE-GO-BETWEEN?cp=1&cxt=Filmography1&pos=8&sid=7fa4e6df-9d9d-4436-971a-37cefa9ab70e&sr=0.13976708) |
| Setting | A Norfolk country estate in the summer of 1900[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between) |
| Running time | 116 minutes per BFI; other catalogs list 114 or 118 minutes[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between) • [6](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9284) • [7](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-go-between/) |
| Losey–Pinter collaborations | Third and final, after *The Servant* (1963) and *Accident* (1967); a fourth script, *The Proust Screenplay*, was never filmed[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Young Leo Colston (Dominic Guard), a schoolboy of lower social standing than his friend Marcus, spends the summer of 1900 at Marcus's family's imposing Norfolk estate.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between) Marcus's older sister Marian ([Julie Christie](https://www.edgepedia.org/julie-christie)) takes a shine to Leo and asks him to carry secret messages to their neighbor Ted Burgess ([Alan Bates](https://www.edgepedia.org/alan-bates)), a tenant farmer with whom she is having a forbidden romance, behind the back of the viscount to whom she is engaged (Edward Fox).[7](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-go-between) • [8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gobetween) As Leo slowly becomes aware of the nature of the relationship, his innocence is destroyed, and the experience marks him for life.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between)
## The Pinter adaptation and the framing device
Pinter initially felt Hartley's book was "too painful, too perfect" to adapt, but his screenplay added an elliptical structure of its own: flash-forwards to an elderly figure who turns out to be the adult Leo, played by [Michael Redgrave](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-redgrave).[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between) Thanks to this framing device, in which the older Leo recalls the traumatic summer of 1900, the film has been described as one of the finest "memory films" ever made.[7](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-go-between) Losey said he and Pinter had become "fascinated by the concept of time, and by the power the cinema has suddenly to reveal the meaning of a whole life."[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/333784/the-go-between) Pinter, for his part, admitted that when he first read the novel he "burst into tears on the last page."[7](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-go-between)
## Production and reception
The film premiered at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or, the festival's highest honor.[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/333784/the-go-between) It was also a critical success that did well at the box office, and it took a number of awards from Britain's Society of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film and Best Screenplay.[4](https://epi-revel.univ-cotedazur.fr/cycnos/542.pdf) American reviewers were similarly warm: Andrew Sarris in *The Village Voice* called it the best movie of the year, and Roger Ebert later wrote that Losey and Pinter were "terribly observant about small nuances of class."[4](https://epi-revel.univ-cotedazur.fr/cycnos/542.pdf) • [8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gobetween)
**Craft.** The film was shot by cinematographer Gerry Fisher, whose rendering of the English rural summer has been described as languid and treacherous at once, and scored by [Michel Legrand](https://www.edgepedia.org/michel-legrand).[10](https://mubi.com/en/films/the-go-between/critics-reviews) • [6](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9284) Legrand's darkly romantic score, which signals danger well before the plot does, was later reworked by Marcelo Zarvos for Todd Haynes's *May December* (2023).[6](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9284) A 4K digital restoration by [StudioCanal](https://www.edgepedia.org/studiocanal) screened at MoMA in January 2024 as part of a film preservation festival.[6](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9284)
## Themes and legacy
Both Losey and Pinter were less interested in the romance itself than in the way its illicit nature exposes the English class divide of the Edwardian period.[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gobetween) The BFI notes that the nastiness hiding under the hazy facade of idyllic countryside and delicate tea parties remains the film's most potent aspect.[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-british-films-1971) Losey, an American director who had left Hollywood after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era and made Britain his home, found in Pinter a writer whose work often reflected the passive-aggressive torment beneath the veneer of British middle-class respectability.[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-british-films-1971)
The film contributed to setting a model for Britain's serious literary period picture: faithfully adapting a classic novel, filming on location in period-accurate settings, and engaging with the English past in a critical, not simply nostalgic, way, a model that shaped the heritage cinema (British genre of nostalgic, prestigious period literary adaptations) of the 1980s and beyond.[12](https://sightlines.media/film/36194/the-go-between-1971)
## References
1. [The Go-Between (1971), BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/48143bb8-9be5-5696-86de-c79583193d2b/the-go-between)
2. [Palme d'or: the 1970s, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2020/palme-dor-the-1970s/)
3. [The Go-between, ACMI collection](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/80728--the-go-between/)
4. [Harold Pinter's The Go-Between: The Courage To Be, Christopher C. Hudgins, Cycnos 14.1 (1997)](https://epi-revel.univ-cotedazur.fr/cycnos/542.pdf)
5. [The Go-Between (1971), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/54194-THE-GO-BETWEEN?cp=1&cxt=Filmography1&pos=8&sid=7fa4e6df-9d9d-4436-971a-37cefa9ab70e&sr=0.13976708)
6. [The Go-Between. 1971. Directed by Joseph Losey, MoMA](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9284)
7. [The Go-Between, Film Society of Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-go-between/)
8. [The Go-Between, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gobetween)
9. [The Go-Between, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/333784/the-go-between)
10. [The Go-Between critic reviews, MUBI](https://mubi.com/en/films/the-go-between/critics-reviews)
11. [10 great British films of 1971, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-british-films-1971)
12. [The Go-Between (1971), Sightlines](https://sightlines.media/film/36194/the-go-between-1971)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media › Films based on novels, novellas, and short fiction › Films based on early 20th-century literature*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license