Scandale

"Scandale" came out at a time that few Canadians (and probably zero Americans) will recall easily: it was a satire of an ACTUAL event that occurred within the Quebec government, being that lowly government clerks and such had procurred gov't video equipment to make raunchy porn movies in an effort to bolster their pathetic salaries, in a time of gov't cutbacks.

The film mirrors the actual events and takes pot shots at the political mood at the time: Canada in general, and Quebec in particular. Viewers cannot fully appreciate how clever the writing is unless they know a bit of the background to the film's premise.

Assuming a viewer knows nothing of the actual scandal, this film may seem far-fetched and ridiculous. Even then, there are some very funny moments and scenes (the teeny-tiny Christmas turkeys are hysterical!) and the naughty bits might just steam up your lenses just a little!

Nanette Workman's "Call Girl" number is sexy and intriguing, especially since she's not attractive in the "usual" sense.

If you enjoy political satire and have been a current events fan for many years, you'll probably appreciate the more subtle charms of this film.

Lame Canadian-French comedy that probably get a NC-17. The film involves making a movie called "prono-bec", and has lots of low octaine gags. The only Highlight in this film is when they enter into a private nightclub, which is so private that there is no audience. The nightclub scene has Nanette Workman singing "Call girl" and Les Fros Brossuere performing a Mikado like take-off. The late Sony Forbes (from SCANNERS) also adds funny performance, and the rest of cast are also good, but badly dubbed. It's shocking to think that the producers of this film wins the Canadian oscar every other year, but they moved on to better things. The film is okay if you are looking for a sex comedy.

In the late seventies or early eighties, news broke that some employees of the television network that broadcast the Parliament House of Commons debates had been using the equipment to film some porno films in their free time. This movie was based on those news reports.

At the time of its release, it caused a controversy because the mainstream actors were under the impression that they were part of a soft-core erotic comedy, playing a film crew involved in the filming of adult or porn films. Alledgedly, they were unaware that the producers and/or director had filmed some more explicit scenes which were later inserted in the film. Some of the actors were embarrassed at being in what they considered a "dirty" movie.

Although the more sexual "inserts" did not feature the kind of explicit depictions of actual sex that we see today in adult films, they did show some erect penises, something which had not been done before in mainstream Quebecois (French-Canadian) film.

This film is a pseudo-documentary or 'mocumentary' re-creation which parodies actual events that took place within the Quebec provincial government in Canada, and created a scandal that for several days monopolised the attention of the media within Quebec, as well as in much of the rest of Canada. The events concerned took place at a time when drastic Provincial budget cuts, designed to overcome many years of budget deficiencies, were making the life of provincial civil servants (government employees) very difficult, and the story broke with the uncovering of a pornographic movie intended to be marketed for their benefit, which had been made with Provincially owned equipment by a group employed to create publicity films for the provincial government.

In Canada this story became a nine day wonder which was given a great deal of media attention. This film, which re-creates the story, was produced commercially, initially for showing on Quebec TV, but later for release to cinemas, and eventually for sale in what appears to have been very limited quantities (possibly only in a French language version) as a VHS home video tape. Most of the tapes currently in circulation, including mine, are more likely to have been home recorded from the TV presentations. French-Canadians are noted for their very keen sense of humour, and clearly this TV production was originally made for the local (Quebec) market. The interest shown by the rest of Canada in this story probably surprised its producers, but they were quick to release a cable TV version dubbed in English. However the story is probably almost unknown outside Canada, and even here it was fairly quickly forgotten. Although there were plenty of very amusing topical references in the film which added greatly to its success at the time, the film made no serious attempt to create an independent story that would continue to remain of interest once the original events had been forgotten. I understand that the film is still occasionally screened by cable TV companies in the U.S.A.; but with no knowledge of the background to its production it would be unlikely to be greatly appreciated. It is therefore difficult to discuss this film on IMDb in the same way as most other films.

Quebec politics involve many distinct threads, most of which were quite cleverly parodied by this film. In Quebec there has always been a love-hate relationship with the federal government as well as with English speaking Canada, and for a long time public opinion in Quebec has been bitterly divided between federalists and those who support full independence. These is also an almost incestuous feeling towards France as the foundation of francophone culture, and an obsessive determination to maintain the virtually exclusive use of the french language in Quebec. Recently there have also been strong concerns expressed about the very relaxed social attitude which, what used to be a conservative Catholic society, now takes towards such social issues as nudity on TV, sex shops and striptease parlours in all major centres. The exploitation of all these attitudes provided much of the humour in this film and, to those who are aware of this, it is absurd to regard the film as little more than a piece of soft porn in its own right. When it was released, viewers who appreciated the parody in this film rated it very highly, I would have given it a rating very close to 10. But today standing on its own as a fictional story of unauthorised filming, it would be very hard to give it a rating of more than 5. The comments here by William from Seattle (who probably saw it on Canadian TV) would be typical of those to be expected from the relatively few viewers living south of the border. I have therefore compromised here and rated it at 7 for IMDb. Such a rating does not mean very much as it is an almost unique film which any individual viewer may or may not appreciate. It can perhaps be loosely compared with the U.K. film Scandal (1989), and the recent U.S. film Farenheit 9/11, where the theme is also scandal in government. But these were both associated with scandal within the government, not among its salaried staff, and involved security considerations which were much more serious. These films were therefore much closer to true documentaries than the 'mocumentary' style used for Scandale.

Hopefully the brief notes above will provide sufficient background to help anyone seeing this film who is unaware of its background to enjoy it; but it can never again have as much appeal as it first did for those who were aware of the original story.

Scandale is one the most infamous films ever made in Canada. This movie was based on the true story of a number of employees working for the Quebec Government who augmented their meager paychecks (during the 1981- 82 recession) by using the facilities to film porno flicks.

A number of employees in the Quebec Government are fed up with their boss Mr. Rousseau. He refuses to give them Christmas bonuses and he's a rake who hits on all the pretty females in the office; who respond by giving him the stapler to his scrotum. Repeatedly. He even charges people to use the restrooms.

The employees decide to secretly create a porn film with the T.V. equipment in the facility and they recruit other employees such as the cleaning lady, Mr. and Mrs. Rousseau's chauffeur and some people they find at an adult club. We then see the zany attempts to cover up their dirty work.

The film is actually quite funny in a slapstick kind of way as everybody is trying to keep the project hush-hush. While there's a lot of nudity, there isn't anything sexually explicit. It's kind of like a 1960's nudie. Sophie Lorain is the stand-out as the cute Lucille. She looks quite delicious here.

My favorite scene is the recruitment attempts at the adult club where famed Quebecoise chanteuse Nanette Workman performs Call Girl. Workman is an interesting story as she's an American woman who made her name singing Francophone songs.

I doubt the movie is on any DVD or even VHS tape but if you can find it somewhere, check it out. It's quite a hoot.