Sleeve Design : A Box of Frogs

Scum
 

Alan Clarke | GB | 1979

Re-made for the cinema after the original 1977 BBC 'Play For Today' was banned shortly before transmission, Scum was Alan Clarke's (The Firm; Made in Britain) hard-hitting and uncompromising attack on Britain's borstal system. Much like Franco Rosso's equally superb Babylon, Franc Roddam's Quadrophenia and Brian Gibson's Breaking Glass, Scum was a gritty, true-to-life film that show-cased a number of young actors who were to become the backbone of British films and television in the 80s and 90s.

Carlin (Ray Winstone) arrives at a borstal, having been transferred from his previous institution for assaulting an officer. His reputation precedes him, and both the borstal officers and borstal 'daddy', Banks (John Blundell), see him as a threat to be dealt with. It doesn't take long for Carlin to realise that he must beat Banks to take the top spot in the inmate hierarchy, and avoid direct confrontation with the borstal officers. Yet the place he has arrived in is already a pressure cooker, and the cruelty of the borstal officers coupled with the sheer inhumanity of institutional life will lead to two suicides and a full-scale riot against the officers and the system.

Thirty years on, Scum remains one of the most powerful and thought-provoking films ever to emerge from the British film industry. It was made at a time when the 'short, sharp, shock' was part of the government's attempt to deal with youth crime and Scum's savage portrayal of that system leaves the viewer in little doubt as to the film-makers views. 

Even though Scum is ultimately a work of fiction, and a fair amount of dramatic license has been used, there can be no getting away from the questions the film raises about the brutalising effect borstal life had on both inmates and officers. Even by today's more permissive standards, it has lost none of its power to shock or disturb the viewer.

 

 

 

Scum was made by G.T.O. Films for a paltry £6,000 budget, and passed uncut for cinema exhibition in the summer of 1979 — the very same year it received its home video premiere courtesy of early pioneers VCL.

Trailblazers Channel 4 screened the film in 1983, resulting in it being subject to a successful private prosecuction by self-appointed guardian of public morality Mary Whitehouse. The broadcaster later won on appeal. 

Using the central image of Ray Winston brandishing an iron bar (as taken from the original UK quad poster), Odyssey's late 1989 release proudly trumpets its uncut status. Note the tiny ‘certificated’ added to the reverse sleeve's notification stamp, shown here.

  

 aka : —

cast : Ray Winstone, Mick Ford, Julian Firth, John Blundell, Phil Daniels, John Fowler, Ray Burdis, Patrick Murray, Herbert Norville, George Winter, Alrick Riley, Peter Francis, Philip Da Costa, Perry Benson, Alan Igbon, Andrew Paul, Sean Chapman, Ozzie Stevens, Ricky Wales, Peter Howell, John Judd, Jo Kendall, John Grillo, Philip Jackson, Bill Dean, P.H. Moriarty, Nigel Humphreys, James Donnelly, Joe Fordham, Ray Jewers, Ian Liston, Charles Rayford, John Rogan