Scandal

One stray photograph in the mountains becomes a smear campaign and ends up in court — decades before anyone coined the word "paparazzi." Scandal (1950) is Akira Kurosawa's courtroom drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM.

Painter Ichiro Aoe gives singer Miyako Saijo a lift on his motorbike after meeting her at a mountain inn. A few words, a shared balcony — and reporters from the tabloid Amour are already inventing a romance between two celebrities. Aoe refuses to let the lie stand and sues for libel. Defending him is Hiruta, a shabby, drink-sodden lawyer whose daughter is dying of tuberculosis. The catch: Amour's editor quietly buys Hiruta off, and the man promises to lose the very case he's arguing.

Toshiro Mifune plays the hot-tempered painter, but the film's real center is Takashi Shimura as the broken Hiruta, caught between his conscience and an envelope of cash. Kurosawa made the picture in anger after the gossip press came for him, which gives its talk of free speech, responsibility, and human frailty an unusual heat. An early, underrated entry in his filmography — gentler than the later epics, with the same live wire running through it. Stream Scandal (1950) online on iFILM.