The Devils is a 1971 historical drama directed by Ken Russell, set in 17th-century France, in which a priest is accused of witchcraft as part of efforts by the French authorities to seize control of the fortified city of Loudun.
Classification issues
- Sex
- There are scenes of masturbation and other sexual activity, including a sexualised dream sequence in which a character visualises a lover in the form of Christ. Full-frontal female nudity occurs during a scene in which a group of nuns writhe orgiastically while in a state of religious hysteria.
- Violence
- A man’s legs are beaten with a hammer while being tortured and he is later burned at the stake. In another sequence, an exorcist attempts to purge the demons from a woman by performing an enema on her.
Cinema classification
Ken Russell's film, based on Aldous Huxley's 1952 documentary novel The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting’s play The Devils, was first seen by the BBFC in an unfinished 'rough cut' on 27 January 1971. At around the same time, this 'rough cut' was also shown to senior executives from Warner Brothers, the film's distributor. In a rare example of a film being censored not only by the BBFC but also by its own distributor, both the BBFC and Warners expressed reservations about the strong religious, violent and sexual content of the film, which seemed likely to provoke significant controversy.
Warners and the BBFC therefore drew up separate lists of the cuts they would require before the film could be distributed in the UK. In a number of cases the requirements of Warner Brothers and the BBFC coincided but a number of other cuts were unique to either Warners or the BBFC. Warners were content with the additional cuts requested by the BBFC, and vice versa, and a full list of required changes was forwarded to Russell.
The cuts were intended to reduce (i) the explicitness and duration of certain sexual elements, including an orgy of nuns, (ii) elements of violence and gore, chiefly during an interrogation scene and the final burning of the character played by Oliver Reed, and (iii) scenes that mixed sexual activity and religion in a potentially inflammatory fashion.
A modified – but still technically unfinished – version of the film was seen again by the BBFC on 8 April 1971, incorporating many (but not all) of the cuts requested by both the BBFC and by Warners. Ken Russell had toned down or removed what had been regarded as the most difficult scenes, including fully deleting the so-called 'Rape of Christ' sequence in which a group of nuns cavort on a crucifix, whilst hoping that the significant reductions he had already made would perhaps allow certain other shots to remain.
The BBFC's Secretary at the time, John Trevelyan, informed Russell that the modified version was generally acceptable for an X certificate and agreed to waive some of the cuts that Russell had chosen not to make. The BBFC's President, Lord Harlech, acknowledged Russell's critique of religious hypocrisy and indicated that no additional cuts would be required.
Nonetheless, partly in response to the strong reaction of some of the BBFC's Examiners against the cut version, the BBFC did request further reductions in four sequences. Russell responded by complying fully with three of the cuts but insisted that the fourth additional cut could not be made properly because it would create continuity problems.
On 18 May 1971 the BBFC awarded an X certificate to the cut version of the film. Because of the scale of the changes made to the film (including the deletion of one entire sequence) it is difficult to calculate accurately how much was removed from the film between January and May 1971. However, it is estimated that several minutes were removed.
The film opened in the summer of 1971, around the time John Trevelyan stepped down as Secretary of the BBFC and Stephen Murphy took over the position. Murphy became responsible for addressing public responses to the film. Mary Whitehouse's Festival of Light campaign contributed to controversy, and some local authorities chose to refuse screenings of the film in their areas.
In America, the film also caused widespread controversy and attracted the most restrictive X rating from the US classification body, the Motion Picture Association of America. This X rating, later replaced by the NC-17, meant that the film would be rejected by many of the major cinema chains and could not be advertised in the press. Warners were therefore obliged to cut the film by another few minutes (on top of the cuts already made in the UK) in order to produce a version of the film that was acceptable for a US R rating.
Video Classification
It was the American R-rated edit of the film, rather than the BBFC-approved UK cinema version, that was released on video in the UK in the early 1980s, before the introduction of the Video Recordings Act 1984.
The same version was formally submitted to the BBFC for a video certificate after the introduction of the Act, which made video classification mandatory. It was classified 18 without further cuts, but was a very different film to the one released in UK cinemas in 1971.
The original UK cinema version remained unavailable on video in the UK until 1997, when it was resubmitted to the BBFC following an airing on BBC 2 in 1995. This version restored the material cut in the US but did not restore the material originally cut by Warners and the BBFC.
Some of the footage originally cut in 1971 was recovered in the early 2000s, and portions were included in a Channel 4 television documentary in 2002. A partially reconstructed version of the film, reinstating sexual material previously cut from two key scenes, was premiered, without a BBFC classification, at the National Film Theatre in 2004, although this so-called ‘Director’s Cut’ was not formally submitted to the BBFC until 2026.
The film was again submitted to the BBFC in November 2011 for classification on DVD. As it was the cut version that had already been passed at 18 on VHS in 1997, it was again classified 18.
In 2026, the ‘Director’s Cut' version was submitted to the BBFC for cinema re-release and was classified 18 uncut with content advice noting ‘strong sex, nudity, violence’. This extended version reinstates sexual material in two key sequences, although the other material removed in 1971, including elements of violence, is now presumed to be lost.
