Ken Russell's The Devils - there is news!

It turns out that there has been news in regard Ken Russell's hard-to-see The Devils - a film based on historical events which documents the misuse of  church power and the persecution and martyrdom of a somewhat debauched priest, played by Oliver Reed. Film geeks have been waiting for years for an official DVD release. Long-censored footage, previously considered lost, of orgying nuns molesting a life-sized Christ on the cross (the so-called "rape of Christ" scene) was reinstated for a highly watchable bootleg that came out a few years ago, but it was of variable quality and aspect ratio, and still missing the scene where Vanessa Redgrave, as a mentally disturbed, sexually fixated nun masturbates with a rather phallic chunk of charred human thighbone. A lot of discussion has been on whether Warners would ever "have the guts" to release the full film - a discussion that presumes that it's the controversy around these censored elements in the film, and the film's critique of religious hypocrisy, that has kept them from getting on board, which may or may not be the case; I actually don't see how the film - which attacks hypocrisy in the name of God and the misuse of power, not God or faith or the idea of belief - as blasphemous in any way, and can't see how (unless one is pro-hypocrisy) it could be regarded as a threat to ANY person of faith, however disrespectful it might be from an idolator's point of view... It's funny what some people are scared of...

Well, here's the news, for anyone who missed it (as I did, until late last night): in 2010, Warners DID release the film - in Spain and very, very briefly on iTunes. Reports online suggest that this is a great-looking release in the proper aspect ratio, but still abbreviated, running 103 minutes. Whether PAL speedup has anything to do with this or not hasn't been noted, but 103 minutes is the length given for the censored cut; longer versions, including the "rape of Christ," run between 108 and 111 minutes, and reports online state that this footage is still missing. It is, of course, highly unfortunate, that Warners, who COULD release the complete film, are choosing to go with a censored cut; but as with other botched DVD releases of recent years (the Zabriskie Point with the shitty Roy Orbison song tacked onto the end credits; the Performance with the missing line of dialogue; the highly abbreviated, dubbed, mangled version of Burn!) this may be the only official release we're going to get, unless someone at Warners catches a rare case of courage.

Meantime, it turns out that what appears to be the same release as the Spanish is now available in region free NTSC through Korea. The box art below is from the Korean edition, as sold on eBay. Note the misspelling of the director's name! (Nothing new there - my version of The Brood from Korea is directed by someone named "David Cronenberc"). I've got this on order and will weigh in presently as to whether any missing footage has been reinstated.