Scandal (Caton-Jones, 1988) DVD, 1988

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MovieMail's Review

Nick Riddle takes a look at this once controversial film about the cold war sex scandal that toppled Britain's Conservative government in the early 1960s and finds that it has held up extremely well as a high-calibre heritage movie.

So how does Scandal, a rendition of the early-sixties Profumo Affair stand up, now that it’s finally been released on DVD? Rather well, as it happens.

The fuss in 1989 over its sexual content now seems rather quaint, and Scandal seems even more like a high-calibre ‘heritage movie’ than it did back then: London in its just-about-to-swing phase is lovingly recreated, right down to the beermats and street-corner milk-vending machines, and the layers of the British class system are shown in cross-section, from country houses and the corridors of power to ska clubs, bedsits and prefab housing.

Joanne Whalley (as Christine Keeler) and Bridget Fonda (as Mandy Rice-Davies) are beguilingly wide-eyed; Ian McKellen works miracles with the somewhat underwritten part of John Profumo; but the laurels go to John Hurt’s understated portrayal of Stephen Ward, a self-styled hedonist whose obsession with social climbing was his undoing.

The scenes between Whalley and Hurt sketch the outline of a platonic love affair, but the film makes clear that the real scandal was the scapegoating of Ward by an establishment whose recreational needs he served so attentively.

Nick Riddle on 26th July 2010
View all 41 of Nick Riddle's reviews

Film Information

Director - Michael Caton-Jones

Produced - 1988

Main Language - English

Countries & Regions - British Film

Cast - Ian McKellen, John Hurt, Iain Cuthbertson, Britt Ekland, Jeroen Krabbe, Leslie Phillips, Bridget Fonda, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer

DVD Details

Certificate:	18	Publisher:	Icon	Region:	2
Length:	110 mins	Cat No:	ICON10186
Format:	DVD Colour

DVD Extras

The Minister The Model and The Russian Spy - In-depth interviews with John Hurt, Michael Caton-Jones, Stephen Woolley and Michael Thomas, with Profumo expert Rupert Gavin discussing the making of Scandal and the context of the real Profumo affair
Audio commentary with director Michael Caton-Jones
Audio commentary with producer Stephen Woolley and writer Michael Thomas
World In Action Ivanov documentary - 60s documentary focusing on the alleged spy

Film Description

British drama based on the chain of events that led to the infamous 'Profumo affair', the cold war sex scandal that toppled Britain's Conservative government in the early 1960s. John Hurt stars as high-class osteopath Stephen Ward, who grooms his teen showgirl protege Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley) and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies (Bridget Fonda) to party with his swinging high-society friends. Storm clouds gather when Christine becomes simultaneously entangled with Russian diplomat and Soviet spy, Eugene Ivanov (Jeroen Krabbe), and the British Minister of Defence, John Profumo (Ian McKellen).