SCANDAL SHEET

US, 1985, 94 minutes, Colour.
Burt Lancaster, Lauren Hutton, Pamela Reed, Robert Urich.
Directed by David Lowell Rich.

Scandal Sheet is a hard-hitting telemovie concerning a tabloid which exploits public figures. Burt Lancaster, an ageing Burt Lancaster, is smoothly persuasive as the editor of the magazine. Pamela Reed has an excellent role as the reporter who is drawn into the world of the tabloid - with the result of betraying her friends and her own integrity. Lauren Hutton and Robert Urich are the couple whose lives are exposed.

The film has the world of Hollywood, of journalism, of the scandal sheet - California style. The film is hard-hitting, reminsicent of Burt Lancaster's Sweet Smell of Success of the mid-'70s. The ending is tough. Direction is by David Lowell Rich, director of many telemovies and miniseries.

1. Strong drama? Issues? Characters and situations?

2. For the television audience? Hard-hitting? Arousing
audience Interest and curoosity, Critique?

3. The affluent world, California, homes, business offices, Hollywood? The background for this kind of drama?

4. The focus on Inside World? The place of the tabloid? Its reading audience? The desire for scandals? The exploiting of people and their problems? Harry Fallen and his justification to Helen of the tabloid, the audience, the attack on elite papers and magazines and the need for meeting the desires of the public? The office, the staff, the meeting-, the sensational stories (the fat lady telling stories about fat women, the bishop and the invalid, marriage in space ... )? Headlines, photos? The motivation of the journalists? Money? Their unscrupulous methods? Blackmail? The self -satisfaction of the staff of the paper? The editor? The seduction of the journalist and her succumbing to the world of the tabloid?

5. Burt Lancaster as Harry Fallen: presiding over the paper, the meetings, his suave and gentle style, phone calls, politicking, wanting Helen Grant, the negotiations, the house and his persuasiveness, seductive, His decision about the twins' story? What he would print and not print? The exposure of Ben Rowan? His motivations? His manner of putting Felen on the story? persuading her? The missing document and his use of the fron page? His responsibility for Ben Rowan's death? The confrontation with Helen? Putting the facts before her? His finally driving away? A Portra;t of a tabloid editor?

6. Helen and her skills in international journalism? Her magazine? Her family life and her love for her son? Her friendship with Ben and Meg? The memories of rooming with Meg? The phone calls, her stances against Fallen? Her visit to California? Accepting the offer, the house, the school? The first assignment and her visiting the parents of the dead twins, her reluctance to interview them, seeing the ace reporter and his style, forcefulness? The interview? The article? Her being drained? Fallen's visit and gift? Persuading her to investigate Ben and Meg? Her visit to them, reminiscences about old times, confidences? Ben's suspicions? The question of the contract, her beign bossed about by the reporter, her going, tearing the contract up? The attack by the reporter? her fur, the money, the credit card, its being torn? Her not knowing about the front page? Ben's death? The maid and her knowing about Fallen and his manipulations? The demand for the photo? The final confrontation with, her being abused and spat on? Her decision to take the photo? Her calling herself a whore and succumbing to the world of Inside World? Portrait of a Journalist, the betrayal of integrity? Her concern for herself, her son?

7. Ben and Meg, at the alcoholism clinic, leaving, the interviews and photos, Ben's outburst, return home - the path with all the bottles? His rehabilitation? Meg's devotion, concern? The new film and her giving up her money for his performance? The contract? The visit of Helen - the airport friendliness, coolness at home? Ben and his antagonism: the expose, Ben's death? Meg's anger, the confrontation at the funeral, her despising of Helen? The portrait of innocent people being victimised? Audience emotional response?

8. The Journalist and his paying off informants? At the clinic? The photographer? The set-ups for Ben, the bottle, the fight? The subsequent articles in the paper? The investigation of the Siamese twins, their death? Separated in their coffins? Fallen's decision to put them together? The pressure on the parents - and the final rejection? Paying the undertaker and the photo? Lack of scruple? Brutal attitudes, clashes with one another? The similar tactics for Ben and Meg, the photo of Ben in death?

9. The world of scandal, audiences and readers promoting this kind of scandalous journalism? Codes of ethics and behaviour?