Scandal (1989)

A Disappointing Continuation

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

I saw this back in the day. Of course back then, it was for reasons of the flesh on display. The past decade or so, I'm RavenGlamDVDCollector and looking to get all my old faves on DVD. I didn't really remember all that much. To cut a long story short, this time round, with myself as a much older guy, besides those wonderfully immortal words by Bridget Fonda, "well, he would, wouldn't he?" which I view as an all-time favorite, what really stands out in this movie, is the most amazing performance by John Hurt as Steven Ward.Now, people, I DO NOT tend to go around praising actors. I very seldom do. I focus on actresses. That's what The Raven does.So, take it from me, a compliment from me to a male actor must be about something astounding.Believe me, John Hurt's performance in this movie is just exactly that. Astounding. Of all performances in my movies-on- DVD (view my list on my member's site) I would say the Raven- Oscar goes to John.He brought me to tears.Need I say anything more?So, the Profumo affair really was a storm in a tea-cup used to sell newspapers, but the collateral damage claimed a guy who was caught up in the middle of it, the likely scapegoat. A head had to roll, and there was this social gadfly who all could be dumped on. John gave a magnificent performance as Steven Ward, and I felt like I was watching helplessly.It's years later, I haven't seen it in a long time, but the news of John Hurt's death early this year also kept the movie in mind.Highly recommended. Highly indeed. This is a truly praise-worthy flick.Do I think any of you would be misled by this review? If you want to see a movie about a real-life sex scandal, THIS IS THE ONE. If you want to see an award-worthy acting performance, JOHN HURT in SCANDAL.Overlooked. People wouldn't look past the naughty bits.John Hurt, I salute you. Respect! Awe!

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.

This is an excellent movie on the political scandal that hit UK in 1960s. No wonder so many British actors rejected to act in this movie. The central character in this story is about this beautiful girl (Bridget Fonda) and her relation with several prominent British politicians of her time along with a Russian diplomat. It shows the underlying facts and ironies of British political system. While watching the movie one is spell-bound from beginning to the end. This movie is about people and their relations with other people. The scene where Bridget Fonda is running from one man to the other (fresh out of swimming pool) sums up the movie in fact. No, I am not talking of glamor associated with Fonda running around. The scene expresses the sense of the movie in a nutshell. It is a story of a woman who is trying to find her place in the world, about a man who can manipulate people to achieve his end, about a scandalous politician, in fact about so many colorful people that it is impossible to specify here. Please watch the movie if you ever get a chance. If you like intrigue, drama, corruption and beautiful women, not to mention political scandals, then it is the movie for you. This is the perfect movie for late night over the weekends! I have decided to give it nine stars, but it could easily have been ten....

Stories based on true-life situations are common place. This is primarily because us "normal" people are fascinated by others shortcomings. This movie, is none the less, very interesting and well done. It genuinely has the look of a 60's movie even though it was done in 1989.We can only look at some of the characters, and if we are compassionate in any way, feel some sort of pity for the people portrayed in this movie. As such, the movie does as it should. It takes you from your own reality for a short period of time and gives you a glimpse at what real life is like from a different perspective.I enjoyed this movie, as much as any true-based story. Maybe even a slight bit more as it doesn't need any of the over-used violence and blood of what most true-based stories seem to need. It is intense without Hollywood glamour.