Joseph Losey

The Go-Between recounts the secret love affair between a beautiful heiress and a poor tenant farmer, told by the twelve-year-old boy who is hired to be their message bearer.

Upper-class Tony hires servant Hugo Barrett, who turns out to have a hidden agenda. The aristocratic Tony (James Fox) moves to London and hires the servant Hugo Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) for all services at home. Barrett seems to be a loyal and competent employee, but Tony's girlfriend Susan (Wendy Craig) does not like him, and asks Tony to send him away. When Barrett brings his sister Vera (Sarah Miles) to work and live in the house, Tony has a brief hidden affair with her. After travelling with Susan and spending a couple of days in a friend's house outside London, the couple unexpectedly returns and finds Barrett and Vera, who are actually lovers, in Tony's room. They are fired and Susan breaks with Tony. Later, Tony meets Barrett alone in a pub and hires him back, and Barrett imposes his real dark intentions in the house, turning the table and switching position with his master. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Professional servant Hugo Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) is hired by a wealthy young man, Tony (James Fox), as his man-servant. Initially, Barrett is the ideal man-servant, quiet, loyal, submissive, unquestioning, and very helpful. However, over time the shine wears off and he reveals more of his true self, and it's far from submissive. Also, with time the master-servant dynamic starts to shift. —grantss In desperate need of an impeccable valet, the vain and work-shy London aristocrat, Tony, employs working-class Hugo Barrett as his live-in manservant. Of course, at first glance, Barrett is a keeper; however, imperceptible nuances of misconduct and a subtly intense power-play between master and servant will soon lead to a corrosive undercurrent of pent-up emotions, rendering Hugo indispensable. Then, Vera, Barrett's seductive sister from Manchester, enters the picture, and the pernicious psychological abuse escalates. But, what does the insidious servant want? —Nick Riganas Including of their interrelationships, is largely a four person character study split along class lines of proverbial and literal masters and servants in British society. Well off Tony has just returned to London after doing development work in Africa, he planning on doing the same in South America. Setting up a just purchased house in Knightsbridge, Tony hires Barrett as his manservant, the sole servant in the household in Tony not wanting to deal with others who he considers onlookers into his life. There is an immediate and open dislike by Tony's fiancée Sandra of Barrett who she doesn't trust, which places a strain between her and Tony if only because her want for Tony to fire Barrett demonstrates to him that she doesn't trust his opinion, especially as he has become reliant on Barrett for many of his day-to-day needs. Barrett is able to convince Tony to hire his "sister" Vera to be the household maid. As time passes, the interrelationships between the four begin to morph where the class lines not only blur but are smashed. —Huggo

A newspaper editor in a small agricultural town finds himself going against the people in the town when he gets involved in the plight of the area's fruit pickers, who are mostly Mexican. Former big city newsman Larry Wilder is tired of fighting the powers that be and just wants to enjoy his new life as a small-town newspaper editor. He thinks his bucolic new home will provide him with an easy and unconflicted life. But when a young Latino farmworker is goaded into a fight by racist rich boys, Wilder finds himself the only white citizen of the town willing to stand up for the boy's rights. He joins with Sunny Garcia, a staffer for a small weekly newspaper for the Hispanic workers, in trying to see justice done and possibly to save a life. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>