The Devils (film) The Devils (film) The Devils is a 1971 British historical drama horror film directed by Ken Russell and starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave. Russell's screenplay is based partly on the 1952 book "The Devils of Loudun" by Aldous Huxley, and partly on the 1960 play "The Devils" by John Whiting, also based on Huxley's book. The film is a dramatised historical account of the rise and fall of Urbain Grandier, a 17th-century Roman Catholic priest executed for witchcraft following the supposed possessions in Loudun, France. Reed plays Grandier in the film and Vanessa Redgrave plays a hunchbacked sexually repressed
Vanessa Redgrave out" as a debutante. Her siblings, Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, were also acclaimed actors. Vanessa Redgrave entered the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954. She first appeared in the West End, playing opposite her brother, in 1958. In 1959, she appeared at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre under the direction of Peter Hall as Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" opposite Charles Laughton as Bottom and "Coriolanus" opposite Laurence Olivier (in the title role), Albert Finney and Edith Evans. In 1960, Redgrave had her first starring role in Robert Bolt's "The Tiger and the Horse", in which she