The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971)

[TechnicolorAcid]

All of that would reach its best expression in Russell's astonishing rock opera with The Who, Tommy, a few years later, which is perhaps the ultimate satire of the cult of celebrity and how the "deaf, dumb and blind kind who can sure play a mean pinball" is the perfect empty vessel to elevate into Messiah status (Ann-Margaret in Tommy is kind of in the equivalent role of Vanessa Redgrave in The Devils, made even more Oedipally perverse by also being the main character's mother!)

I can see where you’re coming from by describing Ann-Margaret as Tommy’s equivalent to Vanessa Redgrave’s Sister Jeanne because they both serve as the central hysterical woman in both films but I think that’s also ignoring a key difference between them which is that Ann-Margaret serves as the exploiter of Tommy’s condition, basking in the riches brought about by his pinball wizardry while Sister Jeanne is less the exploiter and more the exploited, her own lust for Grandeur being used to justify the destruction of Loudon while she herself is mercilessly violated without a second thought. I would actually argue then that Sister Jeanne’s counterpart in Tommy is Sally Simpson, both women who have a yearning to be with rock star like figures and who are exploited for their adoration until it devolves into apathetic cruelty (which also makes it a bit cheeky to have Grandeur’s actor Oliver Reed, the man lusted after Sister Jeanne, be the one to kick Sally away from Tommy).

[HardNight'sDay]

Clockwork teased a special announcement this last Sunday for this week. Hoping for a physical media announcement but dreading some idiotic merchandise.

I got a good feeling that Clockwork are going to expand US screenings for one more week. I just saw Instagram posts of LA theaters doing the same and I saw additional showtimes in my nearby theater.

[criterionsnob]

I did notice it was being held over for a second week in my local theatre as well.

[HardNight'sDay]

Clockwork teased a special announcement this last Sunday for this week. Hoping for a physical media announcement but dreading some idiotic merchandise.

I got a good feeling that Clockwork are going to expand US screenings for one more week. I just saw Instagram posts of LA theaters doing the same and I saw additional showtimes in my nearby theater.

Confirmed by Clockwork.

[big ticket]

I'm genuinely shocked they finally decided to let this come out and uncut. I quite literally told a friend a few weeks ago I would eat my shoe in the vein of Herzog if they ever did release it properly in any form. I wonder what changed?

Although I was never the most active user on here, I have become far less active in recent years, yet I have always associated user Big Ben with this film. It looks like you haven’t weighed in on anything since this post, but I would love to know if you have gotten the chance to see it? I believe you have also posted, in the past, that you don’t often get the somewhat limited release stuff, so maybe it hasn’t come through your fair town.

I hope this doesn’t come across oddly — I just have a weird memory, and couldn’t help but to ask!

[Finch]

Wouldn't it be glorious if further demand led them to add a third or even fourth week? Considering what else is playing right now, the Holmes documentary aside.

[Lowry_Sam]

Wouldn't it be glorious if further demand led them to add a third or even fourth week? Considering what else is playing right now, the Holmes documentary aside.

Actually the festival favorites have started general release here: Possible Love, Fjord, La Bola Negra, Fatherland & Once Upon A Time In Harlem, Once Upon A Time In The Middle East, Wild Horse Nine, Musk, Naza, Your Mother x3 are still playing too, There is finally some choice.

[HardNight'sDay]

There's going to be a new documentary about Ken Russell directed by his son.

[Big Ben]

I'm genuinely shocked they finally decided to let this come out and uncut. I quite literally told a friend a few weeks ago I would eat my shoe in the vein of Herzog if they ever did release it properly in any form. I wonder what changed?

Although I was never the most active user on here, I have become far less active in recent years, yet I have always associated user Big Ben with this film. It looks like you haven’t weighed in on anything since this post, but I would love to know if you have gotten the chance to see it? I believe you have also posted, in the past, that you don’t often get the somewhat limited release stuff, so maybe it hasn’t come through your fair town.

I hope this doesn’t come across oddly — I just have a weird memory, and couldn’t help but to ask!

I did manage to see it years ago because some brave soul uploaded an absolutely atrocious rip of the film onto Youtube (The BFI DVD maybe?) for the briefest of moments. It looked terrible, sounded terrible and was obviously not the full uncut version. I am very grateful for this because I obviously I don't get the chance to see things like this very often!

On this note does anyone have even the faintest idea as to what changed over at Warner Brothers? I was never really even able to ever get an answer as to why Warner Brothers was so spooked in the first place, only to have them do a complete one eighty on something that for all intents and purposes was treated like a cursed artifact. Preservation concerns? A desire to make money? I'm still not over the whiplash of "This will never, ever come out" to "Here's this cool ass film that we want you to see"!

[Forrest Taft]

Considering they’re also releasing long-unavailable uncut Avery cartoons now, could it not simply be the result of someone in the legal departement having recently retired? A regime change leading them to take a chance on this?

[Never Cursed]

On this note does anyone have even the faintest idea as to what changed over at Warner Brothers? I was never really even able to ever get an answer as to why Warner Brothers was so spooked in the first place, only to have them do a complete one eighty on something that for all intents and purposes was treated like a cursed artifact. Preservation concerns? A desire to make money? I'm still not over the whiplash of "This will never, ever come out" to "Here's this cool ass film that we want you to see"!

I can't give you a specific answer, but it was probably no more complicated than managerial turnover. Even before the now-completed sale to the Ellisons, Warners went through a lot of high-ranking executives in the last ten or so years, and you can see the effects of that turnover in other places, such as their 180 on the Snyder Cut of Justice League and their conscious pivot to big-budget auteur-driven films in their final years. If I had to guess, some old suit who hated the film retired/got replaced by someone apathetic to its supposedly controversial content and who was willing to only look at it as a potential money-maker and vehicle with which to launch Clockwork.

[HardNight'sDay]

If I had to guess, some old suit who hated the film retired/got replaced by someone apathetic to its supposedly controversial content and who was willing to only look at it as a potential money-maker and vehicle with which to launch Clockwork.

I think that was a long standing rumor to the reason why the director's cut never got released until now.

[brundlefly]

Don't know how much credit to give the ex-NEON folks running Clockwork, but capitalizing on the window between the moral objections of what was once Warners (also once “A Kinney Leisure Service”) and whatever impositions Skydance loom is opportunism at its best. Last week, The Devils was playing at more local multiplexes near me than the Fielder/Oppenheim doc, and I was shocked there were even a dozen others at my screening.

Let's hope they squeeze a disc out before Ellison puts the kibosh on physical media.

[BoosterShane]

My local Regal extended the showings for another week. Obviously doing ok here which surprises me. I’m in Wichita Ks and really thought I’d have to travel to see it. Not only did it come here, but it’s staying another week!

I think word of mouth is starting to spread. The first night I saw it, there was only 4 people in the theater counting my wife and I. The 2nd time seeing it was 5 days later with about 8 people. By last Thursday, there were 11 or 12 people there. So each screening the viewership jumped. And that’s here in the Bible Belt!

[Lowry_Sam]

And that’s here in the Bible Belt!

The Bible Belt is where it should do best!

[HardNight'sDay]

Official Devils merchandise of two t shirts and a poster. I really wish they have an official soundtrack release, hopefully in the near future.

[Aunt Peg]

Saw this today at the cinema. Needless to say it looked gorgeous and having seen it numerous times on the big screen in faded and worn prints it was beyond my wildest dreams to see it look this stunning with previously cut footage restored to it's rightful place.

Having seen the film so many times over the decades in it's European cut I couldn't help but ponder is this the version that the executives at Warners first saw or not. We'll probably never know.

There was an excellent book written on the making and censorship called The Devils called Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils' (2012) by Richard Crouse.

I got around to reading the book in 2017 (whilst on holidays in Japan - going on holidays is the only time I ever get to read books now for decades) and do recall Russell and possibly other talk about some scenes shorten to appease Warners. These include the exorcism and torture of Father Grandier.

In relation to the exorcism Russell advised Warner's that he had cleaned the shit from the alter, so I paid close attention to that scene. When I got back from the screening I checked the DVD and there was absolutely no difference between the DVD and the restored version. Despite seeing The Devils countless times over the decades I always thought there were several shots to Father Grandier's tortured legs. In fact there is only one shot, such is the power of the scene that I felt I had seen it several times and concur that this was because of the sounds, dialogue and cutting back and forth to various characters faces. In fact Father Grandier's battered and bloody legs are only seen once. I checked the DVD and the scene was the same but the shot do his legs seemed a tad shorter but that could be due the Pal speedup or I'm just imagining it.

So in conclusion if there were scenes shortened they don't appear to be back in the film. The is the BFI version with the rape of Christ (and a scene of Oliver Reed breaking bread repeated during the scene) and the femur scene which is very brief. The speaking of the fermur scene in those brief moments to visual quality of the film seemed to drop.

[Lowry_Sam]

I saw the restoration on 35 mm and wondered if I had maybe it had been cut & that the full restoration was DCP only. There were 2 scenes in particular that felt cut short & felt like there should have been more after it. One was when we see the charred bone in hand & the other is when we see Sister Jeanne sitting on a chair from behind with both legs spread open. The cut to the next scenes were abrupt & jarring as if there should have been more. One of the scenes that was cut to, walking in a field of yellow flowers, seemed to be in a lower quality resolution & felt very out of place.

[GaryC]

I saw it in 35mm last weekend at the BFI Southbank (London). It is the version that was restored in 2002 and which had showings from Digibeta, here restored in 4K from the negatives. The only footage that wasn't in the UK 1971 theatrical cut was the Rape of Christ and the shots of the femur, and these hadn't been publicly shown before except in the 2002 version and in the Hell on Earth TV documentary first broadcast in 2002 (which I saw). All other footage which was cut by the BBFC and/or at the behest of Warners is lost, likely forever. So this isn't a complete uncensored version as many seem to claim as that no longer exists. Editor Michael Bradsell and assistant editor Stuart Baird may be the only people left alive to have seen that version. For another example of what was cut then, Sister Jeanne's use of the C-word was overdubbed as "runts" and that's still the case. The BBFC didn't think they could pass that word at the time: it was two months before they finally did pass the word in Carnal Knowledge.

For the record, the print I saw had a new Warner-Clockwork ident at the start, before the original Warner-Kinney ident. There were also two pages of restoration captions at the end.