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Release Date: 1979

Cast: Patrick Murray, Ray Winstone, Phil Daniels, Tony London, John Blundell, Ray Burdis, Julian Firth, Davidson Knight, David Threlfall, Ian Sharrock, John Judd, Martin Phillips ...MORE

Cast: Patrick Murray, Ray Winstone, Phil Daniels, Tony London, John Blundell, Ray Burdis, Julian Firth, Davidson Knight, David Threlfall, Ian Sharrock, John Judd, Martin Phillips, Bill Dean, Mick Ford, Alan Igbon, John Grillo ...LESS

Categories: Movies, Crime Thriller, Drama Film, Crime Fiction, Juvenile Delinquency Film

Scum is a 1979 British crime drama film directed by Alan Clarke, portraying the brutality of life inside a British borstal. The story was originally made for the BBC's Play for Today strand in 1977, however due to the violence depicted in the film, it was withdrawn from broadcast. Two years later, director Alan Clarke and scriptwriter Roy Minton remade it as a film, first shown on Channel 4 in 1983. By this time the borstal system had been reformatted and eventually allowed the original TV version to be aired. The film tells the story of a young offender named Carlin as he arrives at the... MORE

Scum is a 1979 British crime drama film directed by Alan Clarke, portraying the brutality of life inside a British borstal. The story was originally made for the BBC's Play for Today strand in 1977, however due to the violence depicted in the film, it was withdrawn from broadcast. Two years later, director Alan Clarke and scriptwriter Roy Minton remade it as a film, first shown on Channel 4 in 1983. By this time the borstal system had been reformatted and eventually allowed the original TV version to be aired. The film tells the story of a young offender named Carlin as he arrives at the institution, and his rise through violence and self-protection to the top of the inmates' pecking order, purely as a tool to survive. Beyond Carlin's individual storyline, it is also cast as an indictment of the borstal system's flaws with no attempt at rehabilitation. The warders and convicts alike are brutalised by the system. The film's controversy was derived from its graphic depiction of racism, extreme violence, rape, suicide, many fights and very strong language. Scum would be one of the most controversial British films of the early 1980s, but has since become regarded as a popular classic. LESS