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Fifty-Five Years After Censors Took Their Scissors to It, Russell’s Definitive Vision Finally Comes Home
After a celebrated run on the big screen this fall, Ken Russell’s once-banned 1971 shocker is headed to disc in the form he always intended. Warner Bros. Clockwork has set the restored, uncensored director’s cut for release on 4K UHD on April 20, 2027, Collider has the details, with pre-orders for both a standard edition and a loaded Collector’s Edition opening today. It marks the first time the film has ever been offered in either format.
Oliver Reed stars as Father Urbain Grandier, a magnetic and worldly priest in 17th-century Loudun whose defiance of Cardinal Richelieu makes him a convenient target. When Vanessa Redgrave’s tormented Sister Jeanne claims he has bewitched her convent, mass hysteria takes hold and the church seizes its chance to destroy him. Drawn partly from Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, the film was slapped with an X rating in the U.S. and U.K., trimmed heavily, and barred outright in some countries, leaving it notoriously hard to see for decades.
The version arriving on disc is the one Russell himself rebuilt in 2004 with editor Michael Bradsell and critic Mark Kermode. Clockwork restored it in 4K from the original camera negative, and the restoration played theaters this fall with an NC-17 rating, the first Warner Bros. release ever to carry one.
The three-disc Collector’s Edition comes in a rigid slipcase with a 96-page book and more than 14 hours of material. Alongside the 4K presentation of the director’s cut, it gathers all three versions of the film on Blu-ray for the first time: the director’s cut, the UK X-rated cut, and the US R-rated cut. Extras include the unedited 2004 commentary with Russell, Bradsell, Kermode and Paul Joyce, a never-before-seen extended scene, an expanded cut of the documentary Hell on Earth: The Desecration and Resurrection of The Devils, a new Guillermo del Toro interview on Russell’s legacy, a restoration featurette, and archival interviews with Redgrave and Reed. The single-disc standard 4K UHD pairs the director’s cut with more than four hours of bonus material.
Film: The Devils (1971) – Director’s Cut
Director: Ken Russell
Cast: Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave
Label: Warner Bros. Clockwork
Formats: 3-Disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition; Standard 4K UHD
Release Date: April 20, 2027 (pre-orders open now)
Source: Reporting and confirmation via Collider.
