The Devils (not yet)

[Person]

Tossers.

[Tom Amolad]

I heard a few more rumors of it being the uncut. Is anyone in New York going (or did go) to the screening that could confirm it? What did Russell have to say on the matter?

I missed the screening, but I've found that Anthology's information on timings can be inaccurate. This summer they listed a 97-minute version of Rules of the Game, but it turned out to be the 106-minute cut.

[der_Artur]

... Russell says that Warner Bros. got cold feet on the DVD release earlier this year due to change in management. They still refuse to let the digitally restored version be screened even theatrically.

Until I read this I thought that change was something good... You Americans get me all confused.

[Antoine Doinel]

I heard a few more rumors of it being the uncut. Is anyone in New York going (or did go) to the screening that could confirm it? What did Russell have to say on the matter?

EDIT: It was in fact the "R" rated American edit. Russell says that Warner Bros. got cold feet on the DVD release earlier this year due to change in management. They still refuse to let the digitally restored version be screened even theatrically.

A complete account of that screening, some pics of Russell in costume and lots of other good stuff can be found right here.

[Giles]

I heard a few more rumors of it being the uncut. Is anyone in New York going (or did go) to the screening that could confirm it? What did Russell have to say on the matter?

EDIT: It was in fact the "R" rated American edit. Russell says that Warner Bros. got cold feet on the DVD release earlier this year due to change in management. They still refuse to let the digitally restored version be screened even theatrically.

a number of years back when the AFI (when they were over at the Kennedy Center) did a Russell retrospect, it was advertised that they would be showing the 111min cut of the film, but at the last minute said print was not available, BUT as a surprise the print was not the R-rated version, but the original X-rated US cut with a smidgen more footage than the R-rated version. As for the for the promised Warner US release of a special edition, which they then cancelled - I caved in, said 'screw em' and bought the boot

[manicsounds]

Bootleg?

[MichaelB]

Bootleg?

Without a shadow of a doubt. As far as I'm aware, the film is owned 100% by Warner Bros, so there's no way they'd sanction a region-free release on another label. (Even if they were minded to do this - and I know for a fact that they aren't in this case - it's unlikely they'd agree to it being region-free if handled by someone else unless this other distributor paid upfront for the world distribution rights. Which is even less likely!).

The other giveaway is that the extras seem to be exclusively made up of stuff that's been broadcast on British television - I'm willing to bet that the James Ferman piece is the introduction that the then BBFC head recorded for a mid-1990s BBC2 screening.

As for the film itself, I'm guessing it's an off-air recording with the bits from Channel 4's 'Hell On Earth' crudely spliced in - so it won't replicate what I saw in London in 2004, which was the authentic "director's cut" as reassembled by original editor Michael Bradsell. Indeed, has the original 2.35:1 version ever been given a video release or TV broadcast? Video releases I'm familiar with are either pan-and-scan 4:3 or cropped to 16:9, and the same is true of television versions.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Euro Cult is one of HK Flix's affiliated bootleg labels -- others are PanMedia, Red Sun, and Blax. They were also behind a release of Salo that's just an NTSC port of the original BFI edition, and some Jodorowsky titles that were sourced from the old R2Js. Amazingly they still sell some of this stuff (including Salo) even after it's been released by actual, above-board U.S. distributors.

[HarryLong]

I'm guessing it's an off-air recording with the bits from Channel 4's 'Hell On Earth' crudely spliced in

The tip-off would be that the asp[ect ratio changes for the Rape of Christ sequence.

Until I read this I thought that change was something good... You Americans get me all confused

Hell, Warner Bros. gets us Americans confused. It doesn't matter who runs WB, it seems, THE DEVILS is consigned to permanent limbo.

In the recent WB online chat detailed somewhere hereabouts, the WB rep said that if there are any directors who want their films put out they could be licensed to Criterion. Well I cut & pasted that & emailed it to my friend Ken Hanke, who's close to Russell & was with him at the recent Florida showing of CRIMES OF PASSION. Ken H mentioned the online chat statement to Ken R, who said, "But they know I want it out. I've told them and told them."

Y'know, it's almost laughable to think that a 30+ year old film that was widely shown in its day (I saw the X version theatrically) is too "hot" to be released to home video today.

[MichaelB]

Y'know, it's almost laughable to think that a 30+ year old film that was widely shown in its day (I saw the X version theatrically) is too "hot" to be released to home video today.

Well, not really - on the big screen it's still quite an experience (it certainly goes much further than a big-budget major studio-funded widescreen star vehicle would dare today), and religious intolerance in the US has increased markedly in the intervening years.

It also doesn't help that the US parent arm of Warner Bros utterly loathed the film from the start, and did its best to sabotage its US distribution. As far as I'm aware the US has never even seen the British cut, let alone the full version - Warner eviscerated the film before showing it to the MPAA, cutting out most of the nudity. To add insult to considerable injury, it still got an X rating, and a more conscientious distributor would have used this as an excuse to replace the MPAA-approved version with the longer British cut, but by that stage I think Warners just wanted shot of the film altogether.

Reading between the lines, I also get the impression that there's a difference of opinion between the British and US arms of Warner Home Video - the film's cultural value is far more obvious in its home country, and back in late 2004 they gave the strong impression that the film's release was imminent (they even recorded a commentary). So I'm guessing the release was cancelled following orders from across the Atlantic.

[HarryLong]

It also doesn't help that the US parent arm of Warner Bros utterly loathed the film from the start, and did its best to sabotage its US distribution.

Come to think of it, I saw it in an itsy-bitsy theater that was the equivalent of an arthouse in the rural college town I was living in at the time (while attending college). It probably got better venues in very large cities, but I don't know if it was even shown in the closest "big city" to my college town. Curiously I recall the film being quite widely written-up at the time of its release. And it apparently did well enough at the box office that when (according to what KR told interviewers at the time) KR joked that for his next project he wanted to do THE BOY FRIEND, Warners went out & purchased to rights for him.

Whatever WB may or not have felt about the film at the time, it does seem odd that no matter how many regime changes the studio goes through, they sure have loathed it since.

[MichaelB]

And it apparently did well enough at the box office that when (according to what KR told interviewers at the time) KR joked that for his next project he wanted to do THE BOY FRIEND, Warners went out & purchased to rights for him.

...and then sold them to MGM, presumably, as that was the studio which actually made the film!

Whatever WB may or not have felt about the film at the time, it does seem odd that no matter how many regime changes the studio goes through, they sure have loathed it since.

Russell has made it very clear on several occasions that the top brass at Warners loathed the film from the moment they first saw his initial cut. They complained that it wasn't the film they thought they were funding - oddly, since Russell said he stuck more closely to the script than with almost any of his other projects. Granted, the sheer visceral impact caused by the fusion of writhing, naked nuns, Derek Jarman's sets, David Watkin's cinematography and Peter Maxwell Davies' hugely underrated score wouldn't have been apparent on the page, but Ken Russell was hardly an unknown quantity even then, and if you fund a Ken Russell film in the first place, you're in no position to express surprise when he delivers one (with a vengeance in this case).

But Warners were unsurprisingly prepared to set aside personal dislike of the film when it came to trying to make back its costs - for much the same reason they were happy to (eventually) sanction a release of Performance, an even more extreme example of something Not Quite What They Thought They Were Backing.

[HarryLong]

...and then sold them to MGM, presumably, as that was the studio which actually made the film

Well, I'll admit to fuzziness on an interview I read back in the 1970s. Perhaps it was MGM that bought the rights in order to lure Russell over there ...

I am curious about something you wrote ... or rather two things. Several posts up:

and did its best to sabotage its US distribution

and then in your last:

But Warners were unsurprisingly prepared to set aside personal dislike of the film when it came to trying to make back its costs

I'm not quite sure I see how those two statement aren't mutually exclusive...

[MichaelB]

I'm not quite sure I see how those two statement aren't mutually exclusive...

By "sabotage US distribution", I was referring to them deliberately distributing a butchered version of the film when they didn't have to (since the MPAA gave it an X rating anyway, which Warners originally cut the film to try to avoid), and continuing to this day to ensure that even the British cut (the longest one ever given a commercial release, albeit still cut) was never released over there.

[HarryLong]

Ah. Now I got it. But even in that form, it was about the most intense experience with a movie I think I've ever had. But I'd kill to see a Director's Cut.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

It sounds like there's some grandfather clause memo that says "by no means ever release this movie" and that's that. I'm still confused as to why Performance eventually came out, but this one is still shelved. I mean, Americans are no fans of gender confusion in films and that film is plenty weird on top of that. At this point, the word-of-mouth is so massive that WB could only make a killing on the DVD. Maybe the masturbation with a bone was too traumatizing still for WB?

[HarryLong]

At this point, the word-of-mouth is so massive that WB could only make a killing on the DVD.

One would think so. There's a dealer who shows up at one annual convention I attend (and presumably others) with a clutch of bootlegs & sells out every year. In fact the first year I spotted the DVDR, I had no cash on me. Till I returned he'd sold out & I had to hope he'd show up again the following year...

[colinr0380]

It sounds like there's some grandfather clause memo that says "by no means ever release this movie" and that's that. I'm still confused as to why Performance eventually came out, but this one is still shelved. I mean, Americans are no fans of gender confusion in films and that film is plenty weird on top of that. At this point, the word-of-mouth is so massive that WB could only make a killing on the DVD.

I think the religious (and medical, and political!) hypocrisy element and skewed take on an historical epic plays a large part whereas Performance, while extreme, is still set in a world of gangsters and rock stars outside of general public experience and may be expected to play to a more understanding(?) audience - they are both fantastical, self enclosed and posturing worlds that inform each other in an interesting way.

Though I suppose it could be argued that The Devils is similar in that it is about a self enclosed world of the nunnery within a walled city both trying to remain isolated from the world outside with limited success until their inevitable, and all the more devastating for having been so tenuously prolonged against all odds, collapse.

[kaujot]

Performance has Mick Jagger. There you go.

[stereo]

so does Cocksucker Blues though

[kaujot]

Well, call me old-fashioned, but even a relatively drab title like Performance has a bit more marketing appeal to the average consumer than Cocksucker Blues.

And aren't there other issues preventing the release of that? Aren't the Stones themselves keeping it from release? Or, in the grips of swine flu, have I imagined things?

[Faux Hulot]

And aren't there other issues preventing the release of that? Aren't the Stones themselves keeping it from release?

Exactly. Director Robert Frank was embroiled in a lawsuit with the Stones for years over the release, which was finally granted under the absurd condition that it may only be screened when Frank is physically present.

[HarryLong]

Well, it's not quite THE DEVILS, but you can go here and vote to get THE MUSIC LOVERS released to DVD ...

[beamish13]

Well, it's not quite THE DEVILS, but you can go here and vote to get THE MUSIC LOVERS released to DVD ...

Done. Plus, I voted to get Keith Gordon and Mark Romanek's amazing film "Static" out, too.

[tavernier]

Film Society of Lincoln Center's Ken Russell retro (July 30-August 5) includes The Devils.

No idea what cut they're showing.

Other titles scheduled:
Women in Love
The Music Lovers
The Boy Friend
Savage Messiah
Mahler
Tommy
Lisztomania
Valentino