TRIPLE ECHO
A Feature Film
based on
THE TRIPLE ECHO
by
H. E. BATES
Herbert Ernest Bates CBE, better known as H. E. Bates, was an English author who wrote poetry, plays and essays, but is best known as a novelist and master short-story writer.
Bates wrote over 60 books. His novels, of which he wrote over twenty, like his short stories and autobiographies, are celebrated for their memorable characters and their rich, lyrical evocation of period and place, particularly English rural life in times gone by. Bates’ best-known works include The Jacaranda Tree, Love for Lydia, Dulcima, My Uncle Silas, Fair Stood The Wind For France.
Perhaps Bates’ most famous work, The Darling Buds of May, was made as a much-loved comedy-drama 20-episode TV series, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Jason and Pam Ferris, and first broadcast April 1991. A new major TV series based on the book has been commissioned by ITV and will star Bradley Walsh as Pop Larkin and Joanna Scanlan as Ma Larkin.
In 1972, a much acclaimed film of the novella was made, staring Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed, and directed by Academy Award winner Michael Apted
PROJECT NOTES
SYNOPSIS
Alice is in her late 30s and lives on her isolated farmstead. She is a strong, capable woman who runs the farm on her own, while her husband is away as a prisoner of war. But Alice is lonely: apart from her sheepdog, she has no friends and, other than an occasional trip to the local village, sees no one.
One day, while out shooting the fox that has killed her chickens, she encounters Barton, a young farm boy, who is a very reluctant, conscripted soldier. They sense a bond and Barton regularly comes to the farm for his supper and helps Alice with the chores. Alice and Barton are both lonely, kindred spirits. They are drawn to each other and Alice gladly accepts Barton into her home and then to her bed.
Barton stays with Alice for all his leave and then decides to desert from the army. To hide him on the farm, Alice dresses him in her own clothes and tells people that he is her sister. Barton initially rails against adopting this disguise but gradually he comes to terms with it and eventually embraces it wholeheartedly, to the point of using makeup and painting his nails, and wearing Alice’s clothes even when he is safely hidden away in the farmhouse; while Alice is drawn to Barton’s new-found feminine persona far more readily than either of them could have expected.
Soldiers from the nearby barracks intrude into their idyll and one of them, a boorish and insistent Military Police Sergeant - a “Redcap” - takes a shine to Barton, who he believes is a woman.
The seasons change, as Barton and Alice work happily on the farm, but always on their guard, living in fear of discovery. Barton’s superstition that the hares Alice shoots bring bad luck, adds to the tension. Their mutual need and longing for human contact binds them together, and gradually they fall in love.
The “Redcap” Sergeant returns to the farm and, still believing Barton is a woman, asks him to go to the barracks Christmas dance and, extraordinarily, Barton agrees. Alice is both astonished that he wants to go and terrified of the likely consequences, but Barton is determined to go. At the barracks, the Sergeant, still thinking Barton is a woman, tries to get Barton drunk and have sex. When Barton refuses, The Sergeant tries to rape him, but then suddenly realises Barton is in fact a man. Barton smashes a rock on the Sergeant’s head, stunning him, and runs back to the farm. The next morning, the Sergeant and a troop of MPs come to arrest Barton. He runs off to hide in an abandoned underground cave-store, but then decides to face his captors, and goes back to the farm.
Just as the Sergeant is about to beat-up Barton, Alice, watching events unfold from an upstairs window, keeps her promise to Barton, that she’ll never “let him down”, and shoots him, then shoots the Sergeant and, finally, turns the gun on herself - the triple echoes bouncing off the hills.
