Betrayal **** (1983, Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, Patricia Hodge) – Classic Movie Review 9930

Director David Hugh Jones’s 1983 drama Betrayal is incisively acted by a team who just couldn’t be better – Jeremy Irons as the romancing literary agent Jerry, Ben Kingsley as the cuckolded husband Robert and Patricia Hodge as Emma, the wife in between.

Harold Pinter was Oscar nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for the satisfying adaptation of his own especially involving and ingenious play about the emotional entanglements in London literary circles.

Chronologically, the yarn runs back to front, which sounds very arty, but it works. Director Jones adds a fine polish to this surprisingly intimate final film for Lawrence of Arabia producer Sam Spiegel.

Pinter’s semi-autobiographical story of a woman’s extra-marital affair with her husband’s best friend is told from the husband’s point of view.

Pinter supposedly based the story on his alleged affair with TV presenter Joan Bakewell between 1962 and 1969 when he was married to actress Vivien Merchant and Bakewell married to director Michael Bakewell.

Also in the cast are Chloe Billington, Avril Elgar, Ray Marioni, Caspar Norman, Hannah Davies, Michael König, Alexander McIntosh and Lucien Morgan.

Betrayal is directed by David Hugh Jones, runs 95 minutes, is made by Horizon Pictures, is released by 20th Century Fox International Classics (1983) (US) and Virgin (1983) (UK), is written by Harold Pinter, is shot by Mike Fash, is produced by Sam Spiegel and Eric Rattray, is scored by Dominic Muldowney, and is designed by Eileen Diss.

It is David Hugh Jones’s debut theatrical film.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9930

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