The Devils (1971) Let me first answer the question you're no doubt asking.....
"How in the name of All Gods Of Cinema did BQ manage to see writer-director Ken Russell's legendary, lost lost Three Ring Circus of deranged depravity???? Wasn't that film banned in all civilized counties of world and prompted its distributor Warner Brothers to claim, "What'd you say the name was? 'The Devils'? Nope, never released it. Never heard of it....move along...."
Let me explain:
Somehow, an app called 'Movieland TV' managed to slip into the Roku line-up of apps offering free movies.
Couldn't believe my eyes when I encountered it......and I guessed at once its days were numbered since at least 90% of the movies were obtained illegally.
But what a frickin' line-up! Impossible-to-find, impossible-to-stream movies from the 50's, 60's and 70's, plus a ton of titles you've have to pay 3.99 to stream on every other site.
"The Devils", which I'd not laid eyes on since the year it came out, was the very last film I was able to stream on Movieland TV until Roku finally pulled the plug on it a few days ago.
And you'll be happy to know that the film's still crazy after all these years. At the very height of his notoriety, Russell plunged the cinema world into his personal phantasmagoria of naked masturbating nuns, piles of plague victims, Oliver Reed as a horny priest burned at the stake and Vanessa Redgrave as madly giggling, hunchbacked Mother Superior. (Cause, as far as BQ's concerned, you can never have enough madly giggling hunchbacked nuns in a movie....)
Wow, did they know how to party in 17th Century France or what?
To cook up all the madness, Russell assembled a supporting cast of glorious grotesques, overacting as if they're all starring in your latgest nightmare........the always, snarky, smarmy bug-eyed Dudley Sutton, the cadaverous Michael Gothard as frenzied exorcist, the prissy babbling Max Adrian ......and there's Redgrave, dialing it up to 11 on the loony-meter.....
And let us forever pay homage to the host of uncredited women, bald headed and stark naked who spend almost the entire second half of the film in tota' delirium, jamming various objects into their privates.
As you can tell from my brief (and believe it or not) understated descriptions of what goes on here, any director today who made "The Devils" would see his career instantly implode and evaporate before his eyes.
But in the 1970's? We're talkin' decades and decades before wokeness and political correctness clamped down on filmmakers and their films. Nobody had a clue as to what would fly in movie theaters anymore, a joyous era for groundbreaking artists.
So how do I judge and rate a movie like "The Devils"?
On its own terms, as one of Ken Russell's maniacal dreamscapes, I suppose I'd think of it as a success. You can't logically level criticism on a film take already takes great pride in being nuts.
Or as they say these days.....it is what it is. And anyone visiting this site knows there's a special place in BQ's heart for the oddest of oddball films.
Sadly, I bid a fond farewell to "The Devils", (and the outlaw Movieland TV app as well).....who knows when or where the film (or the app) will ever surface again. 4 stars (****) to the both of them.......
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