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Just what I expected

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Important history, amazing soundtrack, brilliant actors. What's not to like.

John Profumo, Minister of War in the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan, was forced to resign in 1963 when it was discovered that he had lied to the House of Commons about his affair with Christine Keeler, a model-cum-dancer-cum-general-good-time-girl. More than fifty years on, the Profumo Affair still remains Britain's most notorious political sex scandal. It even rated a mention ("British politician, sex") in Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". Other British politicians whose careers were ended or damaged by scandal- Tony Lambton, Jeremy Thorpe, Cecil Parkinson- are now largely forgotten figures. David Mellor remains in the public eye, but more as a radio personality than as an ex-politician, and few people today remember exactly why he was the subject of so much tabloid gossip in the early nineties.Profumo's name, however, lives on, possibly because the affair in which he was involved may actually have altered the course of history. In the general election of October 1964 (the film wrongly gives the date as November) Macmillan's successor Alec Douglas-Home was very narrowly defeated by Labour's Harold Wilson. Had his party not been embroiled in a lurid scandal the previous year, Douglas-Home might well have stayed in power and British politics in the late sixties could have been very different.In many ways the main character in the film is neither Profumo nor Keeler, but Stephen Ward, the man who first brought them together. Ward was, and still is, a controversial figure. I have never really bought into the theory that he was the innocent scapegoat of an Establishment frame-up, and I certainly would not agree with the reviewer who compared Ward with Timothy Evans. The comparison may have been suggested by the fact that both men were played by John Hurt (Evans in "Ten Rillington Place"), but the two cases were very different. Evans, who was hanged for a murder he did not commit, was the victim of an appalling miscarriage of justice. Ward, who committed suicide during his trial, may well have been guilty of the crime of which he was accused, living off the immoral earnings of a prostitute. (Keeler admitted accepting money from the men she slept with and then passing it to Ward; she always denied being a prostitute, but in the eyes of the law she probably was).Even if Ward was technically innocent of the charge he was nevertheless a rather louche, sleazy character. The son of a clergyman, he worked as an osteopath, a profession which brought him a decent living, but nevertheless had a side-line as pimp to the British Establishment, organising orgies and assignments for high-class gentlemen with low-class morals, of whom Profumo was one. He assumed that his friends in high places would protect him from the law and that, if friendship proved insufficient, his power to blackmail his clients would do the trick. After Profumo's downfall and the disgrace of several other personalities in the wake of the scandal, however, there was nobody left to protect him and he no longer held any secrets which had not already been revealed. The Establishment had no need to frame an innocent man; they merely flung a guilty one to the wolves.Both main female characters, Keeler and her friend and fellow good-time girl Mandy Rice-Davies, are played by actresses who seemed destined for stardom in the late eighties and early nineties, Joanne Whalley and Bridget Fonda. Neither really fulfilled their early promise, despite their good looks, Whalley's marriage to a major star (Val Kilmer) and Fonda's status as the heir to one of America's best-known acting dynasties. Fonda does not seem to have made any films since 2002, and although Whalley is still on the scene she does not really count as a big name these days.Both, however, are very good here. Whalley plays Keeler with a beguiling mixture of seductiveness and feigned innocence. (She had what was probably an unusual experience for her, playing a woman who was more beautiful than she was; whatever else Keeler might have been she was a striking beauty and, had her name not been tarnished by the scandal, might have become one of Britain's leading models). Fonda's Rice-Davis is a brash and cheeky youngster, able to raise a laugh even in the formal setting of a courtroom with her famous line "Well, he would, wouldn't he?" when it was put to her that Lord Astor (an associate of Profumo) had denied sleeping with her. Fonda also copes well with the challenge of a British accent.Hurt manages to raise a certain amount of sympathy, despite his obvious sleaziness, for Ward, a man who seems firmly in control and then suddenly finds his world collapsing about his ears. Ian McKellen is smoothly repellent as John Profumo, a man brought down as much by his arrogance as by his lust. "Scandal" is an entertaining history lesson, but it is also a study of the temptations and pitfalls of power. 7/10

If "Scandal" (1989) was not a fairly accurate recounting of Britain's John Profumo Affair, the characters and events would be too weird to be considered plausible fiction. Defense Minister Profumo's attempt to refute allegations of his involvement with Christine Keeler ultimately brought down the 10 year Conservative Party government back in the mid-1960's. "Scandal recreates these events and gives the viewer a glimpse into the personalities and possible motives of the main players in this political soap opera.But recreating history is a secondary consideration in this film whose theme is about individuals who live in a fairy tale world until they fall victim to the grim forces that take life more seriously. The main player is Stephen Ward (John Hurt), a osteopath and recreational artist whose main goal is to be part of the right crowd, not so much immersed in this kind of society as in a position to observe it closely for his amusement. His method for doing so involves discovering ravishing young women from the poor side of town and doing a Henry Higgins number on them. The film begins with his discovery of Keeler (Joanne Whalley) who he begins grooming and introducing to prominent members of his in-crowd. The two soon fall in love, but theirs is not a physical relationship. Stephen delights in seeing his protégé work her magic on men in authority. This eventually leads to their doom, since no one quite understands such an unconventional relationship they have no credibility when an attempt is made to make Stephen a scapegoat for the government scandal.In retrospect the process of attacking Ward to contain the widening scandal was one of the two most shameful abuses of the judicial system in post war Britain. Coincidentally Hurt played the victim in the other one as well; "10 Rillington Place" (1971), in which Hurt is wrongly executed for a murder committed by his landlord, the now notorious serial killer John Christie."Scandal" is a powerful and arresting film with solid performances. Whalley has the biggest role and is a bit too intelligent looking to be completely believable as a character like Keeler. But she is so nice to look at that almost anyone would willingly trade credibility for scenery-and she is otherwise entirely convincing in an excellent performance. I first noticed her in "Willow", the film she made just before "Scandal". She had a secondary part but her scenes were the most memorable in the entire film. Hurt somehow sells you on the fact that his character derives an innocent joy from simply seeing a beautiful young woman walking down the street on a nice day.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Viewed from the 21st century, the Profumo affair seems much ado about nothing, a sex scandal of an altogether more innocent age. Put to one side the marginal security issues, and all that is left is a bit of bad behaviour among the aristocracy, and to be frank, if you choose not to shoot these people, you can't really expect for anything more. It did leave one serious casualty, however: Stephen Ward, procurer of girls to the upper classes, who committed suicide after being abandoned by his friends when the going got tough. 'Scandal' tells his story, and manages to be reasonably sympathetic to Ward, Christine Keeler (the girl who slept with Profumo) and even (to some extent) the minister, although the facts don't quite seem to support the continuing strength of the bond between Ward and Keeler as depicted. The portrait of the early 1960s is well judged (without the film ever feeling overly historical), and there are interesting insights into the semi-professional sexual relationships between the smart set and the girls on the make they adopted. But the best thing about 'Scandal' is really the acting. A distinguished array of British character actors perform their turns impeccably; and Joanne Whalley, while never quite looking eighteen, is a dead ringer for Keeler and always nice to look at. But in his own way, John Hurt (who plays Ward) is also great to look at, in his case because of his straightforward excellence as an actor. In his hands, Ward is an essentially mediocre man; and yet charming, far from wicked and ultimately tragic. In some senses, the whole affair provided a template for the subsequent portrayal of the private lives of politicians by the press, to the extent that today it would hardly make the waves that it did at the time. But this film goes far beyond historical reconstruction, and is well worth watching in spite of the relative triviality of the events is portrays.