You could say Harvey Weinstein is one of the main reasons the Motion Picture Association replaced the disreputable X rating with the even more dreaded NC-17 back in 1990. A year before that decision, Weinstein went toe-to-toe with the ratings board over Scandal<\/em>, a British import Miramax was bringing to American art houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 1989 historical drama is a trip back to swinging London, circa late \u201850\/early \u201860s, when a juicy sex scandal toppled an entire government. John Hurt stars as Stephen Ward, a hedonistic osteopath who introduces teenage burlesque dancer Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley) to a high society that consists of middle-aged, Conservative Party members getting butt-bald-nekkid and engaging in wild-but-proper orgies. (This is the British, after all.) Keeler has a brief, extramarital fling with Minister of War John \u201cJack\u201d Profumo (Ian McKellen, rocking a bald cap); when she has a very public spat with a gun-wielding ex (former Fine Young Cannibals frontman Roland Gift, who can\u2019t act a damn) that leads to a falling-out with Ward, the scorned Keeler alerts the hungry press of her dalliances with Profumo and other high-profile folk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since it\u2019s a story full of sex, lies and old, hairy asses, Weinstein (who threw in $2.35 million for North-American distribution rights) wanted Scandal<\/em> to be a tawdry affair. Impressed by how Alan Parker\u2019s 1987 pulp thriller Angel Heart<\/em>, which featured a blood-soaked love scene between star Mickey Rourke and then-Cosby Show<\/em> regular Lisa Bonet, had the Classification and Rating Association (CARA) ready to give it an X unless cuts were made, Weinstein wanted Scandal<\/em> to raise a similar ruckus. He even showed up on set, urging director Michael Caton-Jones and producer Stephen Woolley to get Whalley to take her clothes off on-camera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, Caton-Jones and Woolley were in it for more than tits and giggles. Working from a script by Australian writer Michael Thomas (Ladyhawke<\/em>), Scandal <\/em>is really a doomed love story between platonic partners-in-crime Ward and Keeler. Both Hurt and Whalley play their historical figures as free-spirited BFFs, vilified for having the gall to reveal that well-respected ladies and gentlemen can be freakazoids too.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Needless to say, that wasn\u2019t enough for Weinstein\u2019s pervy ass. When a fed-up Woolley told Weinstein to oversee a poolside nude scene with Whalley (who didn\u2019t want to do it, at the demanding of then-husband Val Kilmer), Weinstein hired a body double. Apparently, the double\u2019s shapely backside prompted Whalley to do most of the scene herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As expected, when Scandal<\/em> was ready to hit stateside audiences, CARA wanted a couple seconds shaved off a libidinous-but-mostly-tame orgy scene attended by Keeler and fame-seeking gal pal Mandy Rice-Davies (a cheeky Bridget Fonda), both fully clothed. In that scene, you could see a couple making sweet love on top of a piano (as a woman played the keys) and a nude waiter handing out cocktails and wearing a sign demanding to be hit if he did an unsatisfactory job. (Rice-Davies smacks a thorny rose on his wooly rump.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n After two appeals and three seconds of edits, Scandal <\/em>was given its R rating. It turns out CARA was the least of the filmmakers\u2019 worries. As always, Weinstein went into Harvey Scissorhands mode and wanted a more American-friendly theatrical cut. Both Caton-Jones and Woolley didn\u2019t want to cut a frame, but they were overruled by their big, bad executive producer. Eventually, the 114-minute British version was trimmed for us Yanks to 108 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Scandal<\/em> had its share of stateside admirers (\u201cScandal<\/em> is very much an affair to remember,\u201d Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em> critic Desmond Ryan said in his four-star review<\/a>), there were those who saw it as an ultimately empty tale of ribaldry and hypocrisy. San Francisco Examiner<\/em> critic Michael Sragow deemed it<\/a> \u201cso paralyzingly silly, so emotionally weightless, that even the most risque material slips by with barely a tickle,\u201d while LA Weekly<\/em>\u2019s Tom Carson said<\/a> the R-rated U.S. cut is \u201cjust a respectable, strangely diffident, uninvolving movie\u201d \u2013 although it\u2019s far better than the unrated \u201cshambles\u201d he originally saw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The $7 million movie made $8 million around these parts. Yes, Scandal<\/em> was a scandal. However, in the annals of battles filmmakers and distributors had with American censors back in the day, Scandal <\/em>seems like a minor footnote. Just the fact that you can\u2019t find this naughty bit of nostalgia on a streaming or VOD platform tells you how much this movie really meant to Harvey and them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though “Scandal” isn\u2019t available to rent, buy or stream in the U.S., <\/em>a slightly-edited, 111-minute unrated version can be found on YouTube<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/scandal2-1024x576.jpg\")
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