---
title: "A Question of Attribution"
year: 1991
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/a-question-of-attribution"
fi1m_id: "a-question-of-attribution"
imdb_id: "tt0105204"
tmdb_id: 120895
wikidata_id: "Q4659087"
fi1m_score: 74
critics_reviews: 2
published: "2026-10-07T11:31:33.785084+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-07T11:31:34.278706+00:00"
region: "IT"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# A Question of Attribution (1991)

Directed by John Schlesinger · 1h 11m · Drama

## Identity

A Question of Attribution

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/a-question-of-attribution
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** a-question-of-attribution
- **IMDb ID:** tt0105204
- **TMDB ID:** 120895
- **Wikidata ID:** Q4659087
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105204/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/120895, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4659087

**Fi1m score: 74** · Critics: 2 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* Seventy minutes of people being terribly polite about treason, and a painting with more faces than it admits to

> Alan Bennett’s dry hour on Anthony Blunt is a chamber piece that knows exactly what it is about and says it quietly. The scene with the Queen is worth the evening alone; the rest is talk, well made and a little airless.

## Synopsis

London, in the years after the war has stopped being spoken of. Sir Anthony Blunt (James Fox), Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures and once a Soviet agent, has confessed in private and been allowed to carry on. In return he sits, week after week, across a desk from Chubb (David Calder), a Security Service man who wants names and is beginning, against his own instincts, to want to understand paintings. Donleavy (Geoffrey Palmer) hovers above the arrangement. Blunt, meanwhile, has a picture problem: a double portrait attributed to Titian, and a radiologist’s X-ray that shows a third figure under the paint. He walks the corridors of Buckingham Palace checking frames, and in one of them meets a small, brisk woman in a headscarf (Prunella Scales) who has questions about fakes.

## Review

Alan Bennett wrote *A Question of Attribution* for the stage, as half of *Single Spies*, and John Schlesinger has filmed it at 71 minutes without pretending it is anything other than a play with the walls taken down. Sir Anthony Blunt (James Fox) has been found out and forgiven, or at least not prosecuted, and spends his week between the Palace, where he looks after the Queen’s pictures, and a bare room where Chubb (David Calder) asks him the same questions in slightly different orders. The idea is plain and Bennett does not hide it: a painting that may not be what it says it is, cleaned and X-rayed by a man who is not what he says he is.

Fox is the right casting and he knows it. He plays Blunt as a man who has been elegant for so long that it has become a kind of absence; he is never caught, because there is nothing to catch, only manners. He lectures, he corrects, he drops the name of a painter the way other people drop a hint. We liked him and did not trust him, which is what the part needs. Calder’s Chubb is the better surprise, a policeman who starts off taking notes and ends up asking about brushwork, and the film is at its most alive when the two of them forget which of them is being interviewed.

Geoffrey Palmer, as Donleavy, has a handful of scenes of departmental weariness and makes each of them count. Ann Beach, as Mrs Chubb, is given the thankless job of being at home when her husband gets in, and the scenes between them are the ones we would have cut. John Cater’s restorer and Gregory Floy’s radiologist are each on screen for minutes and give the film its two concrete objects: a canvas on an easel and a plate held up to the light.

Then there is the Queen. Prunella Scales is credited as H.M.Q. and plays her as a woman who has been shown a great many pictures by a great many clever men and has drawn her own conclusions. Her conversation with Blunt, in a corridor, about forgery and what happens to a fake once everyone knows it is one, is a long scene by any standard, and one of the two reviews we have read calls it painfully prolonged. We laughed through most of it, at the small evasions and the way she keeps returning to the point like a dog to a bone, and then, somewhere near the end, stopped laughing, because we realised she had been talking about him for ten minutes and he had let her. Bennett writes it so that neither can say what they mean, and Scales and Fox play it so that both plainly do.

The craft is modest and mostly right. John Hooper lights the interrogation room flat and the Palace in long, even daylight, so that nothing is dramatised and the words have to do the work. Barbara Gosnold’s rooms are full of gilt frames and empty of people. Amy Roberts keeps everyone in grey and brown except the Queen, who gets colour, which is a small joke that lands. Gerald Gouriet’s music is sparing to the point of hardly being there, and Mark Day cuts the whole thing as a series of conversations rather than a story, which is honest about the material and also its limit.

That limit is real. Nothing happens here that is not said, and for stretches the film is two men in a room agreeing to disagree about a painting. Schlesinger made [*An Englishman Abroad*](https://film.one/film/an-englishman-abroad) with Bennett a few years earlier, and that film had Moscow and a man falling apart in it; this one has Kensington and a man holding together, which is the quieter and the harder subject, and also the less watchable. We were never bored, but we were aware of being asked to admire.

The reviews so far split down the middle, one calling it first-class entertainment and one finding it lifeless, and we are nearer the first. See it if you like Bennett and can sit still for an hour. At home it is right-sized: a play on a screen, which is what it was meant to be.

*Fi1m score 74, published 7 October 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is A Question of Attribution worth watching?**

*A Question of Attribution* is worth watching if you like Alan Bennett and can sit still for an hour of talk, and we scored it 74. It is a filmed play about Anthony Blunt, well acted by James Fox and David Calder, and the corridor scene between Blunt and the Queen (Prunella Scales) is worth the evening alone. The rest is polished and a little airless.

**How long is A Question of Attribution, and what is it rated?**

*A Question of Attribution* runs 1h 11m. It is a drama film.

**Where can I watch A Question of Attribution in Italy?**

*A Question of Attribution* is not on any streaming or rental service in Italy at the moment. Availability is checked daily.

**How does A Question of Attribution compare to An Englishman Abroad?**

*A Question of Attribution* is the quieter and more enclosed of the two Bennett and Schlesinger films, and [*An Englishman Abroad*](https://film.one/film/an-englishman-abroad) is the sadder and looser. The earlier film has Moscow and a man coming apart; this one has Kensington and a man holding together, which is harder to dramatise and less watchable. We would start with *An Englishman Abroad* and come to this one for Scales.

**What should I watch after A Question of Attribution?**

After *A Question of Attribution*, try [*An Englishman Abroad*](https://film.one/film/an-englishman-abroad) (1983, Fi1m 84): Bennett and Schlesinger’s companion piece, Guy Burgess in Moscow, sadder and looser than this. Then [*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy*](https://film.one/tv/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-1979) (1979, Fi1m 88): Alec Guinness doing the same slow patient listening across seven episodes of grey rooms; and [*The Lives of Others*](https://film.one/film/the-lives-of-others) (2006, Fi1m 84): A listener who starts to care about the people he is listening to, in East Berlin.

### Reviews we read (2)

- **Variety**, Dennis Harvey (85/100, inferred): Harvey calls the film first-class upscale entertainment and predicts it will appeal strongly to Anglophile audiences. He singles out the precision of the writing and acting, especially the Queen’s witty portrayal. [Read](https://variety.com/1992/film/reviews/a-question-of-attribution-1200429549/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Howard Rosenberg (20/100, inferred): Rosenberg finds the production intriguing but ultimately static and lifeless. He praises James Fox’s portrayal of Blunt, while faulting the convoluted story and a painfully prolonged scene with the Queen. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-10-03-ca-19-story.html)

## Details

- **Director:** John Schlesinger
- **Director:** John Schlesinger
- **Writer:** Alan Bennett
- **Cinematography:** John Hooper
- **Editor:** Mark Day
- **Music:** Gerald Gouriet
- **Production design:** Barbara Gosnold
- **Costume design:** Amy Roberts
- **Producer:** Innes Lloyd
- **Cast:** James Fox as Sir Anthony Blunt; Prunella Scales as H.M.Q.; Geoffrey Palmer as Donleavy; David Calder as Chubb; Ann Beach as Mrs. Chubb; John Cater as Restorer (Robertson); Edward de Souza as Collins; Jason Flemyng as Colin
- **Runtime:** 1h 11m
- **First release (the UK):** 20 October 1991
- **Genres:** Drama

## Where to watch in Italy

Not streaming, renting or buying in Italy at the last check.

## If you liked this

- *An Englishman Abroad* (1983), Fi1m 84: Bennett and Schlesinger’s companion piece, Guy Burgess in Moscow, sadder and looser than this — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/an-englishman-abroad.md)
- *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy* (1979), Fi1m 88: Alec Guinness doing the same slow patient listening across seven episodes of grey rooms — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-1979.md)
- *Another Country* (1984): How the Cambridge men were made, told as a school story with the chill left in
- *The Lives of Others* (2006), Fi1m 84: A listener who starts to care about the people he is listening to, in East Berlin — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lives-of-others.md)
- *The Queen* (2006), Fi1m 84: Another monarch quietly cleverer than every adviser she has, during an awful week — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-queen.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/a-question-of-attribution