The last time I checked David Jones‘ Betrayal (’83), a note-perfect adaptation of Harold Pinter’s 1978 stage play, is still not available via disc or high-def streaming. Until recently the only way you could see it was to watch a murky version on YouTube. Now, via recent uploads, you can watch four of the best scenes in a somewhat cleaner condition. Pinter’s scheme, of course, is to run the natural order of the scenes backwards but for the sake of this post, here they are in sequence. The first is between literary agent Jeremy Irons, publisher Ben Kingsley and Kingsley’s wife Patricia Hodge — a scene that I love for the repeated use of the term “brutally honest.” It’s followed by a hotel-room scene in Venice (actually happening a year earlier) in which Kingsley discovers that Hodge and Irons have been lovers for five years. The third is the “modern prose” scene in which Kingsley, post-Venice, says nothing about the affair to Irons during lunch, but at the same indicates everything. The fourth clip is a scene in which Irons and Hodge meet at a pub to talk about their long-past affair and how she’s just told Kingsley everything. The fifth and final clip, in which everything is hung out to dry, is a scene between Irons and Kingsley. This is one of Kingsley’s greatest-ever performances, and you still can’t find a decent-looking version of Betrayal anywhere, for any price.

And then this happens….

Years later this happens…

And then a few hours later this happens…