Check out never-before-seen footage from the 4K restoration.
Warner Bros. Clockwork will release KEN RUSSELL’S THE DEVILS for an exclusive one-week theatrical run (including 35mm screenings) in North America October 16. A UK release will follow on October 30. The 4K restoration from the original camera negative of Russell’s uncensored director’s cut will be the first NC-17 release in Warner Bros. history—appropriate, given that the movie carried an X rating when it first opened in 1971. Guillermo del Toro says, “The restoration of the material is like cleaning the Sistine Chapel with saliva. It is insane, the epic size of the film. I mean, I’ve seen it on the big screen in Telluride at a theater—but I’ve never seen the movie until I saw this restoration.”
THE DEVILS stars Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Reed, Dudley Sutton, Max Adrian, Gemma Jones, Murray Melvin, Michael Gothard, Georgina Hale, Brian Murphy, Christopher Logue, Graham Armitage and John Woodvine. The synopsis: “Grandier [Reed] is a handsome, charismatic and womanizing figure whose common-leadership qualities put him at odds with King Louis XIII [Armitage] and Cardinal Richelieu [Logue] over their planned destruction of Loudun’s fortifications. When the increasingly demented Sister Jeanne des Anges [Redgrave] claims that she has been visited by an incubus named ‘Grandier,’ Father Mignon [Melvin] calls for chief exorcist Father Barre [Gothard] to perform torturous rituals on her body and soul, which intensify her lustful ravings. Soon an entire convent of Ursuline nuns are claiming seduction by Grandier’s black magic and indulging in spectacular blasphemous orgies which attract tourists from as far afield as Paris, sealing the accused priest’s fate as an emissary of Satan.”
