The Go-Between (1971) on Netflix
In the summer of 1900, twelve-year-old Leo Colston is a guest at Brandham Hall in Norfolk. His friend's grown sister Marian asks him to carry a letter to tenant farmer Ted Burgess.
- Netflix4.3/5
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- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Leo Colston, twelve, is invited to Brandham Hall, the Norfolk house of Marcus Maudsley, a school friend whose family is wealthy. The middle-class boy is out of place there, and Marcus's older sister Marian, who is grown up, is kind to him, buying him new clothes and taking him on walks. Marcus falls ill with the measles and stays shut in his room, so Leo explores the estate alone. At a neighboring farm he hurts himself in a haystack, and its tenant, Ted Burgess, treats the injury, then asks the boy to bring a letter to Marian. She hands him a reply to take back, and Leo keeps carrying letters to and fro, thinking nothing of it, while Marian is courted by Hugh Trimingham, the heir her parents favor.
Cast
- Simon Hume-Kendallas Denys
- Amaryllis Garnettas Kate
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Go-Between (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- EMI sold The Go-Between and Tales of Beatrix Potter to China for release at $16,000 each, and they became the first western films released in China for two decades.
- Sir Alexander Korda, who bought the novel's rights in 1956, envisioned Alec Guinness and Margaret Leighton in the leads and hired Nancy Mitford to write a script, though L. P. Hartley said Korda never meant to film the book, only to resell the rights at a profit.
- Joseph Losey budgeted The Go-Between at $2.4 million but had to make it for $1.2 million, cutting the shooting schedule by a month and taking a percentage of the profits instead of a fee.
- Child actor Dominic Guard had a stammer that sometimes made delivering his lines impossible and caused nervous tics; Joseph Losey coached him and, in "a rather brutal way", told him to stop whenever he used a tic or stammer.
- Richard Rodney Bennett was announced as the film's composer, but his score was rejected and Michel Legrand ended up writing the music.
- Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother came to the ABC Cinema on Prince of Wales Road in Norwich for the film's local premiere on 29 October, giving Norwich its first royal premiere.
