Scandal (1989) A Very Stylish Brit Noir Masterpiece

"Wow, blown away, this one was an unexpected visual treat." (Noirsville)

How in the hell, with all this interest nowadays in Film Noir has nobody acknowledged Scandal as being one of the greats of early 90s Neo Noir peak. It has to be because of the nebulous nature of Noir. If you are visually oriented you will immediately pick up the phototropic vibe stimulating the Dark "Noir Stained" Story along. If you think Noir needs a checklist to verify itself you'll be thrown off the trail. Checklists don't really work because there's always exceptions.

For instance one of the more recent boxes is that for a film to be a Noir the main character "knows he's doing wrong but does it anyway." There's a lot of Noir that check that box, but the exception to that is our Private Detective Noir, the detective gets a pass he's not morally ambiguous. And, there's plenty of Noir without Femme Fatales. Checklists have faults because Noir isn't really a genre.

Read all about why there's all the confusion here.

In Scandal, by the way, the funny thing is, practically all the characters are morally ambiguous, and that's the big "checkbox du jour" for the "genre-ists" side of Noir, right?, and I've never heard any about this. What's up with that? The only explanation is that instead of seeing Noir as an ongoing entity that is continually with us a lot of folks are trying to circle the wagons around the "safe" forties and fifties Hollywood censored Noir.

Scandal is based on the real life events leading up to the Profumo Affair which started on July 8, 1961. I was eight years old, and remember enough about how things looked and how life was and of course watched TV and saw the old variety acts on live TV, to be drawn back into that time easily.

I also recall the name Profumo from the news, not because of the story but because it sounded like an Italian or Hispanic names I was familiar with and that was why I remembered it. I knew none of the details until I watched the film and did some research.

Directed by Michael Caton-Jones (Memphis Bell, Basic Instinct 2). Those are possibly the only two titles I recognize, and not even sure that I watched. Possibly Basic Instinct 2 but don't remember much of Basic Instinct besides the obvious.

Written by Michael Thomas. The excellent Cinematography by Mike Molloy (who BTW was camera operator for John Alcott on Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, and A Clockwork Orange, and known also for working on Walkabout). Film editor was Angus Newton. Music was by Carl Davis.

The film stars John Hurt (I, Claudius, The Elephant Man, 10 Rillington Place, Alien, Deadman, ) as Stephen Ward an osteopath, sketch artist and pimp, Joanne Whalley (The Singing Detective, Willow, Kill Me Again) as Christine Keeler dancer and "entertainer", Bridget Fonda (A Simple Plan, Point of No Return, Single White Female, Jackie Brown) as Mandy Rice-Davies dancer and "entertainer", Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings) as John Profumo Secretary of State for War, Leslie Phillips as Lord Astor, Britt Ekland (After The Fox, The Bobo, What The Peeper Saw) as Mariella Novotny an English socialite and prostitute, Daniel Massey as Mervyn Griffith-Jones, Roland Gift as Johnny Edgecombe, Jeroen Krabbé as Eugene Ivanov, Jean Alexander as Mrs. Keeler, Deborah Grant as Valerie Hobson, Alex Norton as Detective Inspector, Ronald Fraser as Justice Marshall, Paul Brooke as John, Detective Sgt., Keith Allen as Kevin, Reporter (Sunday Pictorial), Ralph Brown as Paul Mann, Iain Cuthbertson as Lord Hailsham, Johnny Shannon as Peter Rachman, Leon Herbert as Lucky Gordon.

Story

We get the title, then the opening credits roll over vintage footage from the late 1950s, one clip has possibly Jack Hawkins sitting in a cabaret taking a drink,

the Brit 50s all while Sinatra appropriately belts Witchcraft.

"Those fingers in my hair

That sly come-hither stare"

"That strips my conscience bare

It's witchcraft"

And I've got no defense for it

The heat is too intense for it

What good would common sense for it do?"

The vintage footage segues into a street scene where a redhead wearing sunglasses in a polka dot pencil dress is slinking towards us crossing a street while walking her dog.

We cut to Dr. Stephen Ward a bon vivant osteopath to the eccentric, a successful sketch artist of portraits and also erotic nudes, basically functioning as a pimp to high society London and was called "the ultimate voyeur … a perverted Professor Higgins" (the 4th Lord Astor)

He's been operating since 1945. He has built a network of many influential friends as a result.

Ward loves, understands, and admires women. He especially loves to watch them move and they way they look, to the point of collecting them as both close friends, muses, and artist models.

John Hurt as Dr. Stephen Ward

Ward's attention is caught by polka dot, and then it shifts when she passes and he tracks the path of a young woman on a bicycle. He has an eye for beauty. Its a nice little sequence conveying a lot of subtext.

We cut to Murray's Cabaret.

Murray's was like erotic eye-candy store, a sort of UK equivalent of a Latin Quarter, or a Copacabana style night club floor show. It was actually billed as "London's Largest Floor Show."

Murray's Cabaret floor show - Unknown

Some of Michael Bronze's Murray's Cabaret costume designs

Murray's Cabaret floor show - Unknown

Murray's Cabaret Costume Design Sketch

Back to the film

We see a floor show of scantily clad and topless women doing a dance routine while a crooner belts out the "She Wears Red Feathers" song.

Into the cabaret filtering through the throng of people we see Ward and two women. This is the only hit that Ward had other girls "Ward's Girls" so to speak, before the events of the film. Ward himself referred to his girls as his "Alley Cats."

They find a table and then sit. Ward is enthralled with the new platinum blonde in the current showgirl routine. He can't take his eyes off her.

Joanne Whalley as Christine Keeler

This is our first into to Christine Keeler.

Keeler was from poverty and a broken home. She was raised by her mum and stepfather in Wraysbury a sort of suburbs of London. Wraysbury is about 45 miles to Soho, London. Think about the distance from Peekskill or Islip to Manhattan, or Rancho Cucamonga to downtown Los Angeles. Not far.

Her family lived in two re purposed railcars in what looks like the equivalent of a US trailer park. Between the ages of 13 and 14 she's sexually abused by her stepfather and his friends for whom she babysat. (According to her bio, she has stated that what it amounted to was her stepfather trying to kiss her and wanting to rub Vaseline on her chest. OK, and then invited all his mates to do the same? Yea sure, that sounds dodgy, we'd have to be real berkers to believe that, because it doesn't really ring true since we know she was sexually active, knew the power her beauty had and obviously liked sex.)

She leaves school at 15, runs away to London, and finds work in a dress shop. At 17 she gets pregnant by the U.S. Serviceman who was boning her. The serviceman gets shipped off, she panics, and then tries to abort the baby, apparently, while back in Wraysbury, that fails, but the baby dies anyway at 6 days old.

She goes back to London and finds work immediately again as waitress at a restaurant on Baker Street. There she meets Maureen O'Connor, who worked at Murray's Cabaret Club in Soho. Maureen introduces Christine to Percival Murray, who immediately hires her as a topless showgirl for £8.50 a week. She is in a relationship with Peter Rachman a notorious Notting Hill, London slum lord, and she has just started working in Murray's when Ward first spots her.

Back to the film.

So Ward is starring at Keeler in her routine, and she is looking back.

Later after the performance she is sitting at a table with her admirers, one of which Hanif is possessively caressing her nyloned thigh.

Ward catches her eye, and walks over and congratulates her on her show, he tells her she shined.

Hanif introduces him, and explains to Christine that he has a very well trained eye. Ward asks her to dance. While dancing Ward works his charm on her.

A week later. We cut to Wraysbury and Christine's mothers house. It looks like a mobile home in an impromptu half trailer park half junkyard. Christine has brought her mother some clothes from London.

While her mother is admiring her gifts a commotion picks up outside as Dr. Stephan Ward drives up in his white 1957 Jaguar XK 150 DHC. Christine looks out the window and is quite surprised that he found her..

Christine Keeler: [as car approaches] Oh, Lord.

Mrs. Keeler: Who's he?

Christine Keeler: I met him last week. He's a doctor.

Mrs. Keeler: A doctor?

Christine Keeler: An osteopath.

Mrs. Keeler: A what?

Christine Keeler: He does people's backs. All sorts of famous people.

Mrs. Keeler: Ooh! What next?

Ward is there to show her his country cottage.

They go to the cottage on the estate of Lord Astor that Ward rents for a £1.00 a year. Ward shows her around the estate, and that later, in the cottage Ward has her pose on a couch while he sketches her.

As he sketches he reveals what he's all about.

Stephen Ward: [as he sketches her] God gave you beauty, Christine. You're lucky, you should enjoy it. You move like a racehorse. You walk like a Darby winner. You must let me help you. Introduce you to some friends of mine, and some photographers. Film people, television people. It's my vocation, you see? *My vice!*

[chuckles]

Stephen Ward: When I see beauty like yours, wild, untutored, elemental beauty... I long to liberate it. It's my life's work, in a way. I could do wonders with you, little baby. Could shock the world.

A couple of days later after a performance at Murray's Christine gets a note from Steven.

Ward wants her to meet him at his place on Wimpole Mews. There he makes her the offer of sharing his rooms. She assumes he's wanting to shack up but he tells her that that is entirely up to her. He's more interested in her friendship and in introducing her to the "world."

He does a makeover and buys her new clothes, and requests that she change her hair color back to auburn, so that she becomes his creation.

Later when she tries to kiss him in thanks, Stephen turns away, he doesn't care for intimacy he's rather be the creative manipulator, composing relationships among his intimate friends and observing the results and cherishing the tawdry details with great relish.

Things start accelerating towards Noirsville once Christine moves in with Stephan.

At a dinner party that Stephen throws for friends, Christine is a bit taken back by the large clear dildo that's decorating the table.

The somewhat formal party suddenly turns into an orgy when one of the female guests pops into view in the living room topless, and the rest of the guests start to disrobe. Christine meets Stephen's eyes and then goes for it, pulling off her top, and joining in.

Back at Murray's a new dancer, Mandy Rice-Davies a blonde and Christine get into a bit of a confrontation at first but become fast friends after Christine overhears Mandy speaking on the phone with her mum and exaggerating her circumstances. Mandy reminds Christine of herself.

With the help of Lord Astor Christine moves Mandy out of her flat and temporarily into Stephen's Wimpole Mews house.

Leslie Phillips as Lord Astor

At a gallery show Christine introduces Mandy to one of her old "boyfriends" Peter "slum lord" Rachman, We also spot Christine and a Russian diplomat are playing peekaboo during the party with each other.

Johnny Shannon in sunglasses as Peter Rachman,

Jeroen Krabbé as Eugene Ivanov

In another excellent Visually Stylish sequence set to Apache by The Shadows, we follow Christine and Mandy as the put on their war paint and sexual battle accoutrements as they prepare to go a knocking shop run by Mariella Novotny.

Mandy is hesitant at first but Christine tells her they will be fine. At the knocking shop they catch the eye of some British movie star who hires the both of them to first have sex with each other on a bed before he jumps in.

Beginning of the Apache sequence

The Knocking Shop

He's a matinee idol (Trevor Eve) and likes what he sees

He likes to watch

Faking it...

Afterward we see Stephen in his office getting somewhat intimate after a treatment with Mariella Novotny the madame of the very same knocking shop.

Britt Ekland as Mariella Novotny

Stephen then gets a call from MI 6 a British intelligence agent wants to meet with him. They meet in a pub. This is where we find out that Eugene Ivanov may be a Russian agent.

Daniel Massey as Mervyn Griffith-Jones

The final piece of the puzzle for the scandal is when Stephan and Christine are entertaining Ivanov poolside at Lord Astor's cottage.

Stephan and Ivanov are sitting on outdoor patio table while Christine takes a dip in the pool. Stephan is teasing her about the swimsuit she is wearing while Ivanov laughs.

Meanwhile at the main house, Lord Astor's dinner party is taking an after dinner walk around the estate. Lord Astor and Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, have split off and are walking on the grass near the cottage.

Ian McKellen as John Profumo, with Leslie Phillips as Lord Astor

Back at the pool Stephan teases Christine who has emerged from her dip soaking wet to take off her swimsuit. Stephan makes a grab for her, and Ivanov faux chases her around as she shrieks and they all laugh. Out on the lawn Lord Astor and Profumo hear her shrieks and go to investigate.

Back at the pool Christine, now at the far end does a strip tease, she tosses her top and then bottoms out towards the screening trees, to the cheers of Stephan and Ivanov.

We cut to Profumo and Lord Astor as they are walking towards where the shrieks came from, they spy near the trees along the pool the naked backside of Christine who is teasing the boys now, by waving green fronds like a fan dancer.

Christine turns her head, and again shrieks in good fun and runs back and forth between the two groups of men until John Profumo catches her in his arms. It's lust at first sight, and of course it all goes Noirsville and makes history. We are at only the 32 minute mark.

Noirsville

Leon Herbert as Lucky Gordon

Mariella Novotny's knocking shop orgy

Roland Gift as Johnny Edgecombe

A masochist at Mariella Novotny's knocking shop orgy

Leslie Phillips as Lord Astor

Mariella Novotny's knocking shop orgy

Deborah Grant as Valerie Profumo

1963 Austin Mini MkI

Christine having routine boring sex with John Profumo

1958 GAZ M-21 Volga

This really is a stunning film, with great directing, great performances and an excellent soundtrack, that hits on all cylinders that has been almost criminally forgotten.

John Hurt is astoundingly good. I've known him since his inspired turn as Caligula in I, Claudius. Whalley was great playing a sex kitten much older that her physical years and she is a very good physical match for Keeler (see below). Fonda was also a good match for Davies (also see below) and handles herself despite not being from the U.K.

Ian McKellen playing Profumo looks like a prat. He's got a ridiculous looking chromedome "wig" with a haircut that's sort of an exaggerated widows peak, that has the sides receded so far back on his head that what is left of it resembles a Mohawk. The actual Profumo didn't look that ridic.

The rest of the cast is spot on. Very enjoyable! 10/10

Noirsville Bonus

Here are actual photos of the "suspects," and some sketches (by Stephen Ward) of both Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies