Kurosawa's favourite actor of the early years was Toshiro Mifune. Here he plays the famous painter Ichiro Aoye, who spends his holidays in the mountains and meets the young singer Miyako Saijo. They live in the same hotel and spend some time together. Two reporters photograph them together and publish the pictures in a tabloid magazine - in revenge for Saijo's refusal to give them an interview. The scandal was there, and the painter's lawyer is bribed by the editor-in-chief of the magazine to get money for his seriously ill daughter. Kurosawa puts characters in situations in which it is difficult for them to make a decision. Akira Kurosawa: "After the war Japan experienced something new: freedom of the press. Of course, it was quickly abused. A relevant mass press thought it had to arouse readers' curiosity and trigger scandals with shamelessly vulgar articles. This tendency had to be stopped, that gave the impulse to my film."

«Mit diesem leicht und flüssig erzählten «Problemfilm» reagierte Kurosawa 1950 auf das für Japan neue Phänomen der Pressefreiheit, die umgehend auch zu Missbräuchen führte. Das eigentliche Augenmerk Kurosawas gilt aber nicht dem titelgebenden «Skandal», sondern der Figur des Winkeladvokaten, den sein Stammdarsteller Takashi Shimura bereits mit jener umwerfenden Mischung von Menschlichkeit und Schwäche zeichnet, die ihn als Hauptdarsteller von Leben unvergesslich machen sollte.» Andreas Furler