Scandal - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Scandal or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Scandal

[veronica]

British Conservative Member of Parliament John Profumo was married to Valerie Hobson. Sir Ian McKellen, who played Profumo, later played James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998). Whale directed Hobson in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

[phyllis]

Emily Lloyd signed on to play Mandy Rice-Davies, but dropped out for a more lucrative part.

[norma]

The song 'Nothing Has Been Proved' which plays over the end credits was composed especially for the film by the Pet Shop Boys after producer Stephen Woolley invited them to produce a song for the film. With Woolley's approval, they asked Dusty Springfield to sing it (her second collaboration with the duo) as he liked the idea of having someone who was well known at the time of the Profumo Affair performing it. The music video shows Springfield singing in a club along with a Christine Keeler lookalike being interviewed by two 1960s style journalists (played by The Pet Shop Boys) in the background with camera flash bulbs going off. Along with these come clips from the film and it's stars, as well as original news footage from 1963 featuring the real life subjects of the film. This video was also used heavily to promote the film in the UK, and was used in place of a trailer by Palace on many occasions due to a detailed trailer never being produced for the film (brief teasers were the only kind produced).

[manuel]

Produced in 1988 concurrently with a theatrical season in London for Sir Ian McKellen, who along with several co-stars, took part in assisting Sam Wanamaker's attempts to ensure the heritage of both the "Globe" and "Rose" theatres. This included several inspection visits that are recalled anecdotally by volunteers. Later, some co-stars attending the densely packed celebrity event, the "Save the Rose Theatre" campaign's public relations day in May 1989. This movie was promoted to the media on the day, along with many others.

[ava]

Although billed in the cast as "Matinee Idol", Trevor Eve's character is named David Fairfax, Jr. It is a reference to Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s real-life role in the Profumo affair. He was not named in this movie for legal reasons.

[frances]

David Suchet was offered the role of Profumo, but turned it down.

[gerald]

Mervyn Griffith-Jones, played in this film by Daniel Massey, was also the prosecuting counsel in another famous British trial of the 1960s - the prosecution of Penguin Books in 1960 for obscenity after they published an unexpurgated version of D.H. Lawrence's novel, "Lady Chatterley's Lover". In a TV program about the trial in 1980, Griffith-Jones was portrayed in dramatized extracts by Edward Woodward.

[lena]

Stephen Frears was considered as director.

[brent]

This movie narrowly escaped an X rating in the U.S. because of some questionable footage during the Cliveden House orgy. Closer scrutiny revealed that two extras were having real sex on a piano in one of the background scenes. Even though they were blurry, the scene had to be trimmed for all general releases to avoid the restrictive rating, which BBFC censor James Ferman accomplished by defusing the light from a table-lamp in the foreground. The inquisitive-minded will find this sequence about forty-nine minutes and five seconds into the movie.

[jessica]

Jean Alexander filmed her cameo in a day.

[cassandra]

Directorial debut of Michael Caton-Jones.

[kristina]

Joanne Whalley's husband at the time, Val Kilmer objected to his wife doing the nude scene. Harvey Weinstein hired a body double for the scene. When Joanne arrived on-set, she wasn't happy with how the double looked. So Joanne ended up doing the nude scene herself.

[chris]

It has been alleged that many British actors and actresses turned down roles in the movie because the subject could have cost them knighthoods and other honors. However, Sir Ian McKellen, already a CBE, was knighted in 1991, two years after this movie was made, and became a Companion of Honour in 2008. Leslie Phillips was awarded the OBE in 1998 and promoted to a CBE in 2008, while Sir John Hurt was awarded a CBE in 2004 and knighted in 2015.

[lynn]

This movie takes place from 1959 to July 30, 1963.

[michele]

There were strenuous efforts made by many politicians to prevent this movie from being made, even though the world-famous events it depicted had taken place more than a quarter of a century earlier. Sir Ian McKellen and Sir John Hurt received numerous letters from famous members of Parliament, asking them to decline their roles. Neither one did. McKellen replied politely to most of these letters; Hurt ignored them, and told journalists that their senders were hypocrites, who were merely anxious to prevent the truth from being told.

[lynn]

For the recreation of Lewis Morley's famous chair photo of Christine Keeler for promo posters, Joanne Whalley actually posed in the opposite direction to what Keeler had in the original shoot. The shot was often reversed however for video and DVD covers in order for it to be more recognizable, even though it put Whalley's hair parting the wrong way around.

[maureen]

The film-makers wanted to use the actual footage of a famous TV interview with Lord Hailsham in which he angrily said that "a great party is not to be brought down by a proven liar and a woman of easy virtue", but Hailsham, still very much alive in 1989, refused to permit it, just as he also made strenuous efforts to prevent the film from being made at all. As a result, the interview was recreated with an actor, Iain Cuthbertson, who was encouraged to portray Hailsham as an apoplectic buffoon.