The Keeler Affair

The second of two films in which Yvonne Buckingham played the title role as a young lady with loose morals (the first being Basil Dearden's 'Sapphire'); both films as it happens with a strong race angle.

Structured like 'The Bad Lord Byron' as a trial in a highly stylised courtroom and concentrating largely on Keeler's relationship with Stephen Ward, it was rushed into cinemas while the poor man was still barely cold in his grave; if he'd lived to have seen it he'd probably have died laughing at the way he was portrayed by a saturnine John Drew Barrymore with a plainly dubbed voice.

Standards have certainly plummeted at Westminster in the past sixty years, since Profumo - who only enters the film in it's final third - was obliged to resign for lying to the House of Commons; prompting the judge interrogating Keeler to ask of the defendant the ironically incredulous question "A member of Her Majesty's government telling lies? Be reasonable Miss Keeler!"

That could certainly never happen today.

Christine Keeler (born February 22, 1942) is a former English model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair.

In July of 1961, Ward introduced her to John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War, at a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor. Profumo entered into an affair with Keeler, not realizing that she was also sleeping with Yevgeny Ivanov, a naval attaché at the embassy of the Soviet Union.

Born in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, she was raised by her mother and stepfather in two converted railway carriages in the Berkshire village of Wraysbury. At age 15, she found work as a model at a dress shop in London's Soho quarter. At 17, she gave birth to a son after an affair with 'Jim', an African-American sergeant from Laleham Air Force base. She discovered she was pregnant only after he had returned to the United States, and she tried to abort the baby herself with a knitting needle, but failed. The child was born prematurely on April 17, 1959, and survived just six days.

That summer, Keeler left Wraysbury, staying briefly in Slough with a friend before heading for London. She initially worked as a waitress at a restaurant on Baker Street and there met Maureen O'Connor, a girl who worked at Murray's Cabaret Club in Soho. She introduced Keeler to the owner, Percy Murray, who hired her almost immediately as a topless showgirl. While at Murray's she met Dr. Stephen Ward. Soon the two were living together with the outward appearance of being a couple, but, according to her, it was a platonic "brother and sister"-type relationship. (read full article at source : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Keeler)

Ward was played by John Hurt in "Scandal" (1989). www.imdb.com/title/tt0098260/

He also appears in Anthony Frewin's 1997 novel London Blues.

Keeler herself stars in the pre credits sequence. This is a shambolic film.Not till the last 10 minutes do they finally refer to John Profumo,who was the centre of the affair.Keeler is shown being tried in a mythical court.The film tends to concentrate on her relationship with Stephen Ward,strangely played by John Drew Barry more. There is one scene at a swimming pool where a pair of legs comes up to Keeler in the pool and suggests they meet up.That by inference is Profumo.