When Stephen Murphy stepped into John Trevelyan’s shoes as Secretary of the British Board of Film Censors in July 1971 he couldn’t have been prepared for what was about to happen. Amid increasing controversy over the so-called ‘sex education’ films that had proliferated during the early months of the year (actually just an excuse to get some hardcore porn on the screen) and faced with the indignation of the newly formed Christian pressure group Nationwide Festival of Light, Murphy was denied the opportunity to slip quietly into his new role. And then there was The Devils. Murphy had inherited Ken Russell’s cause celebre from Trevelyan who had conducted the protracted censorship battle with Russell during the closing weeks of his tenure at the Board. But when the public outcry began, it was Murphy who had to field the questions and criticisms – he was left holding the squalling baby after just a few days in the job.
In an astonishing year for British horror, the remarkable The Devils is the outstanding film, an excessive but brilliant study of madness and bigotry that remains possibly Russell’s best work, and certainly his most controversial. Russell had, by the turn of the 70s, grown used to his work being vilified in public, but even he was perhaps unprepared for the outpouring of vitriol that greeted his liberal adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudon (1952). Dismissed by the critics, vilified by Christian groups and met with bewilderment by a dazed public, The Devils provoked howls of outrage wherever it was shown. Even when the BBC deigned it possible to screen the film during their Forbidden Cinema season in 1996, there were a number of calls of protest both before and after broadcast.
The Devils largely dispenses with both Huxley and the stage adaptation by John Whiting and instead runs the gamut of Russell’s own obsessions and motifs, turning the complex philosophical debate on theology into a wild orgy of sex, violence and high camp spectacle. Russell’s typically flamboyant approach does not, as has been claimed elsewhere, hammer any political intent into submission, but rather brings it into much sharper relief. Russell carefully explores the political in-fighting that waged unchecked throughout the Christian faith, with sect fighting sect while the state stood by waiting to assimilate the exhausted victor. He realises an obscene world of hypocrisy, madness (both literal and political) and corruption where the forces of both organised religion and the state are capable of the most appalling acts in the name of their God and in the interest of their own self-preservation.
That’s not to say that the film lacks Russell’s characteristic shock value. Nuns afflicted with the devastating result of the release of their sexual frustration, Jeanne’s blasphemous masturbation fantasies and her repulsive exorcism by colonic are all excuses for Russell to indulge his own fetishes and obsessions. Which is, in itself, no bad thing, of course and coupled with the political subtexts and, most crucially, the socio-historical context, result in a film of almost unbearable power and outrage.
Oliver Reed has rarely been better than here, perfectly cast as the excessive but sympathetic Grandier, ultimately burned at the stake for his ‘crimes’. His charismatic presence and too-often derided acting abilities are perfect for the role, giving Grandier an almost messianic air and lending the proceedings an allegorical slant – like the Christ he worships, Grandier is ultimately killed by his own followers for simply trying to do the right thing. Russell saw his film as a way to exercise his “rape of Christ concept” and with the pre-release removal of a scene which literally brought this notion to life (the crazed nuns masturbate over a life-size crucifix) it is left to Reed’s hypnotic portrayal of a man fated to die for his beliefs and his love of freedom to carry the allegory.
Somewhat less compelling is Redgrave, whose Sister Jeanne is simply too broad and too close to slapstick for comfort. It tends to be Russell and his crew (including set designer Derek Jarman and cinematographer David Watkin) who are the real stars here, effortlessly blending a classic study of political machinations and religious intolerance with swaggering, vainglorious folly. The scale of the production is often simply breathtaking.
The Devils was dismissed out of hand by many as blasphemous, crass or shocking simply for its own sake – 17 local councils banned it outright while pressure group the National Viewers and Listener’s Association were particularly vociferous in their condemnation. Seen with the benefit of hindsight, it remains a powerful and often deeply disturbing meditation on sexual repression, religious mania and political corruption as only Russell can do it. Often hysterically over the top and frequently brutal and confrontational, The Devil‘s power lies in its deliberate flouting of all of the ‘rules’ of decency and taste. Russell has never been one to exercise restraint and here he lets rip with the full weight of his righteous indignation in one of the most astonishing primal screams ever committed to celluloid.
Russell himself has bemoaned the critical establishment’s apparent inability to understand his true intentions: “What people don’t understand… is that The Devils was done with a great sense of irony”, noted Russell in an interview with Ingrid Pitt. Certainly the broadness of the characters and the often unsubtle humour attest to Russell’s intention to parody the real-life events of Loudon, though most of the film’s detractors were blinded to just about everything but the sex, the violence and the blasphemy.
One of those detractors was British critic Alexander Walker of the London Evening Standard who very nearly met his match on the night of July 22nd 1971 when he appeared with Russell on the BBC’s Tonight programme to discuss the film. Walker’s damning (and error-riddled) review had been published earlier that day in the Standard and from the off, Russell proved to be in no mood to simply accept Walker’s critique. The meeting proved spectacular and is now the stuff of TV legend, with Russell immediately going on the offensive, reminding Walker that his films were made for paying cinemagoers and not for the critical establishment. Adding insult to injury, Walker noted that “The public doesn’t appear all that grateful, especially in America,” a reference to the film’s poor box office performance in the States. Russell then exploded, hitting Walker across the head with his rolled up copy of the Standard and exhorting Walker to “go to America and write for the fucking Americans!”
The fallout was predictable enough – the BBC switchboards were jammed by indignant viewers calling to complain about Russell’s language and the tabloid hacks had a field day. Walker was told by the BBC that should he ever appear on TV again with Russell he “must give an undertaking in advance not to provoke him” (“It’s Only a Movie, Ingrid”: Encounters On and Off Screen by Alexander Walker 1988, p.107) and Russell wrote an indignant letter to the Radio Times suggesting that Walker and Tonight frontman Ludovic Kennedy had conspired against him. A “diminuendo of accusations, libel threats and, eventual, qualified apologies” (ibid) followed, but Walker claims to bear no grudge against Russell: “In fact, I had rather more respect for Ken Russell for forcing his emotions so trenchantly on a critic. The manner of his doing so was, after all, the very embodiment of his filmmaking” (ibid). Russell remains adamant that the furor surrounding the film was justified: “Was it worth it? To me, yes. The Devils was a political statement worth making” (A British Picture: An Autobiography by Ken Russell, 1989, p.193).
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