Well, if you needed any further proof that Ken Russell’s The Devils is finally coming back to American theaters without anyone taking a pair of scissors to it, the NC 17 rating should do the trick.
The newly restored 4K director’s cut of Russell’s gloriously unhinged 1971 masterpiece has officially been slapped with an NC 17 for “sexual content/graphic nudity” ahead of its theatrical return this October. Honestly, considering the film’s history, anything less would have been almost suspicious.
When The Devils first hit American theaters, it carried an X rating, and that was after Russell had already been pressured into making significant cuts. Warner Bros. opted not to fight the rating, and American audiences ultimately received an even more heavily edited version than the one shown in the United Kingdom.
Because apparently the film about religious hysteria, sexual repression, demonic possession and alleged witchcraft needed to be made a little more polite.
The rating was eventually changed from X to R by the MPAA in 1979, but by then the damage had been done. Different cuts of The Devils circulated for decades, leaving Russell’s original vision frustratingly out of reach for audiences who wanted to see the film as he intended.
That finally changes with this restoration.
The new director’s cut was reconstructed using Russell’s own specifications, including reference to an edit he privately assembled in 2004. The goal was not simply to clean up an old print and slap a shiny 4K label on it. This restoration was designed to bring the film as close as possible to the version Russell himself wanted audiences to experience.
The restoration was sourced from the original camera negative, with picture and sound work handled by Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services, Water Tower Color and Warner Bros. Sound. Lucida Productions in London took care of reconstructing the director’s cut.
Starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, The Devils transports audiences to 17th century France, where Father Urbain Grandier finds himself caught in a political and religious nightmare as his efforts to protect Loudun collide with Cardinal Richelieu and accusations of witchcraft and demonic possession involving a sexually repressed nun.
It is, to put it mildly, not exactly a movie that was ever going to breeze through the ratings board with a friendly handshake.
More than five decades after its original release turned The Devils into one of cinema’s most infamous censorship casualties, Russell’s vision is finally getting another shot at American audiences. And yes, the MPAA has once again decided that NC 17 is the appropriate destination.
We can’t say we’re surprised.
If anything, it feels strangely fitting that one of the films most synonymous with censorship is returning to theaters carrying the rating that basically tells audiences, “Yep, they really did put it back.”
Ken Russell’s The Devils arrives for an exclusive one week theatrical engagement beginning October 16 through Warner Bros. Clockwork.