''The Christine Keeler Story'', also known as ''The Keeler Affair'' and ''The Christine Keeler Affair'', is a 1963 film about the

Profumo affair The Profumo affair was a major scandal in twentieth-century Politics of the United Kingdom, British politics. John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative Party (UK), Conservative government, had an extramar ...

Cast

Yvonne Buckingham Yvonne Buckingham is an English actress who appeared in a number of minor or background roles on episodes of British television series or in British films. She played the title role, though only briefly appearing as the deceased victim, in the ...

Christine Keeler Christine Margaret Keeler (22 February 1942 – 4 December 2017) was an English model and showgirl. Her meeting at a dance club with society osteopath Stephen Ward drew her into fashionable circles. At the height of the Cold War, she became s ...

John Drew Barrymore John Drew Barrymore (born John Blyth Barrymore Jr.; June 4, 1932 – November 29, 2004) was an American film actor and member of the Barrymore family of actors, which included his father, John Barrymore, and his father's siblings, Lionel and E ...

as Dr. Stephen Ward *Alicia Brandet as

Mandy Rice-Davies Marilyn Rice-Davies (21 October 1944 – 18 December 2014) was a Welsh model and showgirl best known for her association with Christine Keeler and her role in the Profumo affair, which discredited the Conservative government of British Prime Mi ...

Mel Welles Mel Welles (February 17, 1924 – August 19, 2005) was an American film actor and director. His best-remembered role may be that of hapless flower shop owner Gravis Mushnick in the 1960 low-budget Roger Corman dark comedy, ''The Little Shop of ...

as Yevgeni Ivanovich *Peter Prowse as Domaren *Mimi Heinrich as Marianne *

as herself *

as herself

Production

The film was shot in Denmark over six weeks.

Photo

To promote the film, photographer

Lewis Morley Lewis Frederick Morley (16 June 1925 – 3 September 2013) was a photographer. Biography Morley was born in Hong Kong to English and Chinese parents and interned in Stanley Internment Camp during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong between 1941 ...

took a photo of Keeler sitting on a chair on the first floor of

Peter Cook Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishme ...

Establishment Club The Establishment was a London nightclub that opened in October 1961, at 18 Greek Street, Soho, and which became known in retrospect for satire although at the time was a venue more commonly booking jazz acts and used for other events. It was fo ...

, with

implied nudity Glamour photography is a genre of photography in which the subjects are portrayed in erotic poses ranging from fully clothed to nude. The term may be a euphemism for erotic photography. For Model (person)#Glamour models, glamour models, body sha ...

. Though the film was never released, the photo was published in the ''

Sunday Mirror The ''Sunday Mirror'' is the Sunday sister paper of the ''Daily Mirror''. It began life in 1915 as the ''Sunday Pictorial'' and was renamed the ''Sunday Mirror'' in 1963. In 2016 it had an average weekly circulation of 620,861, dropping marke ...

'' and has since become very famous.

Release

The film was twice rejected by the

British Board of Film Censors The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of fi ...

(BBFC) in 1963 and 1969, and the second time was also rejected by the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

. It was never released in the UK, banned in New Zealand, and shown in Australia only after being edited. These factors, combined with the BBFC rejection, substantially limited its exposure and profitability. The ''Blackpool Tribune'', reviewing the film in Boston, called it "a filmic equivalent to a sex comic." In 1971, the film was screened in London at the New Cinema Club by Derek Hill as an act of defiance against the censor.

Derek Malcolm Derek Elliston Michael Malcolm (born 12 May 1932) is an English film critic. Son of J. Douglas Malcolm (died 1967) and Dorothy Vera (died 1964; née Elliston-Taylor), Malcolm was educated at Eton College and Merton College, Oxford. As a child he ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' said "it was scarcely worth seeing even as a curiosity, a fact that Mr Hill openly admits".Come back, Stan and Ollie: DEREK MALCOM on films not at all for maiden aunts The Guardian 4 Feb 1971: 8.

References

External links

''The Christine Keeler Story''
at

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

1963 films British drama films Films shot in Denmark 1960s British films {{1960s-UK-film-stub