Scandal (1989)

I love this movie so much

Good concept, poorly executed.

Captivating movie !

The acting in this movie is really good.

Based on the 1987 book "Honeytrap" by Anthony Summers and Stephen Dorril, this is quite a good film treatment of the Profumo affair which rocked the British establishment in 1963 and severely discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan. It is reasonably historically accurate but neither the script by Michael Thomas nor the direction by Michael Caton-Jones, making his debut, are as strong as they could be. Given the subject matter, it could hardly leave out sex scenes but some of them were a little over the top.The film's strength lies in the acting. John Hurt gives a brilliant performance as Stephen Ward, the social climbing osteopath and artist who uses girls such as Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies to increase his status by introducing them to prominent men. In Keeler's case, the fact that he introduced her to both the Minister of War John Profumo and the Russian naval attaché / spy Eugene Ivanov was the source of the trouble. In the film, Ward is not depicted as being a very good man. In fact, he is a rather unsavoury sort whom my mother would describe as "a dirty devil." He seems to care about no one but himself. Keeler is fond of him but I think that his affection for her is limited to what he thought that she could for him. However, he is never as interesting or compelling a character as he could be as the writing is somewhat lacking. That said, the film did a good job in eliciting sympathy towards the end when his "friends" abandon him and he is put on trial for living off immoral earnings or, to put it more simply, being a pimp. In the film's final scene, Ward's suicide is depicted when he takes a drug overdose, no longer able to cope with the pressure of the trial and the constant hounding of the press. He was found guilty in absentia shortly before his death but the result has been severely criticised due to the lack of evidence against him and it is currently under review. There was plenty of blame to go around but the bulk of it was shouldered by Ward, which was unfair. On the other hand, Profumo was able to rebuild his reputation to a certain extent due to his charity work. The cynical part of me tends to think that that was the main reason why he did it.I had never seen Joanne Whalley in anything before but I was very impressed by her performance of Christine Keeler, the last surviving major participant in the scandal. The film depicts Keeler as a troubled young woman, barely more than a child when she meets Ward and moves in with him. Ward does not force her into having relationships with numerous men but he does subtly manipulate her into doing so. She was hardly a naive person in spite of her youth but she trusted him more than he deserved and he let her down. I can't blame her for going to the press in the circumstances. Ian McKellen is extremely good as Profumo, whom the film does not hesitate to portray in a very negative light, but he has surprisingly little screen time. Bridget Fonda has seldom been better than as Mandy Rice-Davies, who delivered the immortal line, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?" during Ward's trial, even if her English accent does occasionally slip. It also features great performances from the perfectly cast Leslie Phillips as Lord Astor, Jereon Krabbé as Ivanov, Deborah Grant as Profumo's heartbroken, humiliated wife Valerie Hobson (the former film star best known for her roles in "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Great Expectations" (1946)), Daniel Massey as Mervyn Griffith-Jones, Iain Cuthbertson as Lord Hailsham, Jean Alexander as Mrs. Keeler, Alex Norton and Paul Brooke as the police officers and Trevor Eve as the American erstwhile matinée idol David Fairfax, Jr., who is no way, shape or form based on Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Showing that it really is a very small world, both Hobson and Fairbanks, Jr. appeared in the 1937 film "Jump for Glory".Overall, this is a good film but it never reaches the level that it should. When I taught a constitutional law tutorial on ministerial responsibility last year, I described the Profumo affair to the students (none of whom seemed to have heard of it) as a real life Cold War thriller involving a showgirl, a Minister of the Crown, a Soviet spy and a film star. Sadly, this film is not as exciting as I made the real thing sound.

Well-mounted, stylish and evenly paced, "Scandal" expertly tells an interesting story with much flare and good dramatic sense. Joanne Whalley, Bridget Fonda and John Hurt are wonderfully cast in their respective roles and the narrative moves along with much interest and seldom sags.A quick read of the events and personalities related to the real-life events surrounding the British sex scandal of 1963 will attest to the good effort made to make the film largely accurate yet entertaining.Although the three leads are portrayed as callow and opportunistic throughout most of the action, their human vulnerability remains only slightly obscured; and especially in the case of Whalley's and Hurt's characters, the viewer is compelled to look at them sympathetically once the music stops. Good viewing all around.

What seemed shocking in the 50's is almost commonplace in the debauched 21st Century, so to get a proper perspective on how controversial this was, one would probably have to have been alive during the period. In the absence of possessing a time machine though, one can only guess the outrage at the revelation that British MPs had secret sex parties and slept with prostitutes. WOW! If there is a similarity between now and then though, it's seems to be the determination of the tabloid press to publish as many lurid headlines as possible, regardless of how many lives they ruin. Vultures, the lot of 'em.For such a saucy role, it's surprising that Joanne Whalley-Kilmer doesn't show much skin... Apart from the most obvious use of a body double ever. Never mind, her co-stars more than make up for it on that score, including a rather young Bridget Fonda, fumbling with an English accent. John Hurt and Ian Mckellen complete an impressive cast, who tackle their roles with gusto and make it an engaging ensemble piece.I enjoyed it as an exposé of the morals and hypocrisies of a Britain on the verge of the Swinging Sixties, but was never truly engrossed. Nowadays, in a world where a woman can build a business empire based on one sex tape, you just know that everyone involved in this tawdry affair would be big reality TV stars. A sign of the times indeed. Sigh... 6/10

This film is an account of the Profumo affair involving Christine Keeler. I really enjoyed this film as it was well made and i also like John Hurt as an Actor. His role in this film was of Stephen Ward the "scapegoat" of the whole Affair and this film portrays it from his side well, he doesn't fail in this film either! Joanne Whalley-Kilmer has an uncanny likeness to the real Miss Keeler too and in some parts it was hard to tell them apart. There are real locations used throughout the film too i.e Lord Astors house and the great pool!!!! There are some saucier scenes in the uncut version but either version contains enough plot etc and i don't feel it spoils it if you are viewing a edited version. This film is definitely well worth a look!