Scum (1979) on Netflix
Carlin arrives at a borstal, having taken the blame for a theft his brother committed. Banks rules the wing as its Daddy. Archer, a fellow inmate, resists the staff without violence.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on Prime
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.5/1014,791 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
Three young men reach a borstal in the same prison van. Carlin shouldered a theft committed by his brother, Angel took a car, and Davis escaped from an open institution. Angel and Davis are given single rooms; Carlin is placed in a dormitory. Transferred after assaulting a warden, he hopes to keep a low profile. He befriends Archer, an eccentric inmate with intellectual tastes, doing two years for fraud, who inconveniences the staff by peaceful means. Archer tells him his reputation arrived ahead of him: Banks, the wing's Daddy, is looking for a fight to hold his dominance, backed by henchmen Richards and Eckersley while the warders look on. The timid Davis becomes an early target of Banks's bullying.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Scum (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Scum began life as a BBC Play for Today television film in 1977, but the BBC withdrew it from broadcast over its violence; director Alan Clarke and writer Roy Minton then remade it as a theatrical film two years later, and the original TV version wasn't shown until 1991, fourteen years after it was made.
- Morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse brought a private prosecution against Channel 4 over its broadcast of Scum and initially won, although the ruling was later overturned on appeal.
- David Threlfall had been intended to reprise his role as Archer from the BBC version, but he was working with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was replaced by Mick Ford. The BBC version's homosexual relationship between Carlin and another inmate was dropped, which Minton later said was a pity.
