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 received a Broadcast Film Critics Association award nomination for a performance that took up only seven minutes of screen time. In 2008, Redgrave appeared as a narrator in an Arts Alliance production, id – Identity of the Soul. In 2009, Redgrave starred in the BBC remake of "The Day of the Triffids", with her daughter Joely. In the midst of losing her daughter, Natasha Richardson, Redgrave signed on to play Eleanor of Aquitaine in Ridley Scott's version of "Robin Hood" (2010), which began filming shortly after Natasha's death. Redgrave later withdrew from the film for personal reasons. The part was