Nearly 26 months ago I debunked a then-current rumor about a DVD of Ken Russell‘s The Devils — a visually luscious, insanely flamboyant period melodrama about political persecution — coming out on 5.20.08 via WHV Direct. WHV spokesperson Ronnee Sass called her company’s brief online announcement a “mistake” but said “the title may make an appearance down the road.” Well…?

HE respectfully requests the honorable George Feltenstein to please reveal when, if ever, this perverse but astonishing film — which the religious right would absolutely despise and throw a shit-fit over if they were hip enough to watch it in the first place, which of course they’re not — will see the light of day.

The DVD jacket cover, sent by WHV to dvdverdict in February ’08, doesn’t look like WHV Direct art — it looks like art for a conventional commercial DVD.

The Devils (1971), which boasts superb performances top to bottom beginning with stars Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, is a highly literate, wildly impressionistic depiction of the rise and fall of Urbain Grandier, a 17th century French priest executed for witchcraft.

The Devils is based partially on Aldous Huxley‘s “The Devils of Loudun” (1952), and partially on the 1960 play The Devils by John Whiting, also based on Huxley’s book. If nothing else The Devils was enhanced by production design (done by the late Derek Jarman) that was drop-dead immaculate.

The Devils is a kind of political horror film. It’s about the crushing of freedom by political demagogues using every revolting trick in the book to whip up fear and ignorance among the religious faithful. Incredibly cruel and vicious things happen. The film has an acute atmosphere of evil and wickedness and corruption. It’s horrible and yet spellbinding. I’ve never felt such rancid vibes emanating from the pores of any film before or since.

Which is why it reminds me today on some impressionistic level of the Sarah Palin loonies and the rocks they’ve thrown through the windows of Democratic officials and reps around the country. There’s no question that Palin is the reigning fiend in American politics today. I have no doubt that if she was to be somehow time-machined back to Loudon during Grandier’s persecution (and was also made to instantly speak French), she’d scream for his death.

The Devils‘ Wikipedia page strongly suggests why WHV is still piddling around with the release of the DVD.

“Since the time of its release, the film has caused enormous controversy. In the United Kingdom it was banned by 17 local authorities, and everywhere attracted many scathing reviews. Judith Crist called it a ‘grand fiesta for sadists and perverts‘ while Derek Malcolm called it ‘a very bad film indeed.”

“However, it won the award for Best Director-Foreign Film in the Venice Film Festival, despite being banned in the country. The United States National Board of Review awarded Ken Russell best director for The Devils and his next film, The Boy Friend.

“In 2002, when 100 film makers and critics were asked to cite what they considered to be the ten most important films ever made, The Devils featured in the lists submitted by critic Mark Kermode and director Alex Cox.

“The Devils is a highly controversial film which has a history of censorship. The film is a strong condemnation of religious institutions such as the Catholic Church and organized religion in general. This, combined with its unrelentingly graphic depictions of sex and violence, has led to its history of censorship.

“The film’s combination of religious themes and imagery combined with violent and sexual content was a test for the British Board of Film Censors that at the time was being lobbied by socially conservative pressure groups such as the Festival of Light.

“In order to earn an X certificate, Russell made minor cuts to the more explicit nudity (mainly in the cathedral sequences) and removed some violent detail (notably the crushing of Grandier’s legs).

“However, the biggest cuts were made by the studio itself, prior to submission to the BBFC, removing two scenes in their entirety, notably a two-and-a-half-minute sequence of crazed naked nuns sexually assaulting a statue of Christ and about of half of a latter scene with Sister Jeanne masturbating with the charred tibia of Grandier after self-administering an enema. However, even in its released form, the film was considerably stronger in detail than most films released prior to that point.

“Its fate in the United States was even more stringent, with a further set of cuts made to even more of the nudity with some key scenes (including Sister Jeanne’s crazed visions, exorcism and the climactic burning) shorn of the more explicit detail.

“All of this material was presumed lost or destroyed until critic Mark Kermode found the complete ‘ape of Christ’ sequence and several other deleted scenes (including the fuller version of Sister Jeanne’s masturbation scene as well as additional sequences of naked nuns lounging around the convent and a bawdy dance performed by travelling players mimicking the bizarre events whilst Grandier is being lead to his death) in 2002.

“The artist Adam Chodzko made a video work in which he traced and interviewed many of the actresses who had played the nuns during the orgy scene. Although some material may have been lost forever, the NFT was able to show The Devils in the fullest possible state in 2004. This uncut version premiered at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film in March 2006.

“The British version remains the most complete one in circulation, although there are long promised plans to release the uncut version on mass-market DVD. On April 25, 2007, The Devils was shown for a second time in its fullest possible state to a group of students and staff at the University of Southampton, followed by a question and answer session with the director, AND moderated by Kermode. It was the first significant event to take place during Russell’s tenure as a visiting fellow at the University of Southampton in the English and film departments, April 2007 to March 2008.

“An NTSC-format DVD edition on the Angel Digital label appeared in 2005, with the so-called ‘rape of Christ’ scene and other censored footage restored, and featuring a documentary by Kermode about the film, as well as interviews with Russell, some of the surviving cast members, and a member of the BBFC who participated in the original censorship of the film.

“DVDActive.com announced on February 28, 2008 that The Devils would finally be released on DVD by Warner Home Video in the U.S. on May 20, 2008, in the uncut (111 minutes) version, but without additional material. However, a day later, a DVDActive forum post asserted that the release had been dropped from Warner’s schedule.”

Update: An industry friend believes that “one problem with The Devils is [Warner Bros. president & CEO] Alan Horn‘s overall conservatism, especially towards religion, as even The Hangover gave him problems, which is on record. So distributing a film on DVD that could incur the wrath of the religious right is not high on his agenda. He’s a thought-police kind of guy who has major issues with raunch.”

Variety‘s Brian Lowry is calling the 3D Clash of the Titans “pretty flat,” claiming that the “technical upgrade doesn’t improve the clunky mythological underpinnings. Result feels mostly like a very expensive kids’ pic.

Ray Harryhausen‘s stop-motion work in the original 1981 Clash of the Titans “is surely dated from a technical standpoint compared with the magic CGI can conjure; still, this Titans reboot merely demonstrates that building a more elaborate mousetrap doesn’t necessarily produce a more entertaining one.

Action- and spectacle-wise “everything is literally bigger but not necessarily better [here], including the gigantic Kraken, which now resembles Return of the Jedi‘s Rancor monster but remains every bit as anticlimactic as it was three decades ago.

“The effects are too frequently muddied by the pace at which they flash by, limiting opportunities to appreciate the combined animatronic, computer-generated and motion-capture visuals. The most satisfying creative element, actually, is Ramin Djawadi‘s operatic score.”

“While some critics feel personal relationships [with filmmakers] don’t affect what they write, that’s not been my experience,” writes L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan. “I’ve even found that meeting filmmakers in the course of writing stories from film festivals, though helpful in understanding creative decisions, can be problematic for reviewing. It’s not that you change your opinion of the film from black to white, it’s that friendship can make you take a little off your fastball, so to speak — make it harder to be as blisteringly candid as you ought to be.

L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan; Exploding Girl star Zoe Kazan.

“That’s why, as an astute colleague of mine once said, when Hollywood wants to influence a critic, they don’t do it with gifts or money, they do it with access to talent.”

Turan wrote the preceding as part of a 3.28 Critics Notebook piece about feelings of personal and professional conflict in reviewing Bradley Rust Grey‘s The Exploding Girl (Oscilloscope, opening 4.2 in Los Angeles). Turan has known the star, Zoe Kazan, most of her life as a result of a long friendship with her parents, director-screenwriters Nick Kazan (Dream Lover, At Close Range) and Robin Swicord (Jane Austen Book Club).

My initial reactions to the just-revealed official poster for the 2010 Cannes Film Festival are as follows: (a) “I like the monochrome-plus-neon blue, but it doesn’t exactly dazzle. Lacks pizazz. Juliette Binoche‘s expression is supposed to exude serenity or whatever, but it seems sedate and complacent.” (b) “Binoche is the 2010 poster girl because…? Oh, I get it. Because French photographer Brigitte Lacombe asked her. Fine.” (c) “Binoche’s black slacks seem a bit long — should have been finessed by a tailor.”

HE reader Andy Smith had the best reaction: “It looks like an ad for Binoche hosting SNL. Or, you know, one of those commercial-break cards they sometimes show during a broadcast.”

“The only time I saw Battlefield Earth was at the premiere, which was one too many times,” writes screenwriter J.D. Shapiro in a 3.28 N.Y. Post apology piece. The inspiration was this deeply loathed John Travolta film being recently named the decade’s worst by the Razzie guys.

“Once it was decided that I would share a writing credit, I wanted to use my pseudonym, Sir Nick Knack. I was told I couldn’t do that, because if a writer gets paid over a certain amount of money, they can’t. I could have taken my name completely off the movie, but my agent and attorney talked me out of it. There was a lot of money at stake.

“Now, looking back at the movie with fresh eyes, I can’t help but be strangely proud of it. Because out of all the sucky movies, mine is the suckiest. In the end, did Scientology get me laid? What do you think? No way do you get any action by boldly going up to a woman and proclaiming, ‘I wrote Battlefield Earth!'”

A “full” trailer for Chris Morris‘ Four Lions appeared on 3.26. The film still has no U.S. distributor, and one reason (apart from the obvious primary one) may be that eternal bugaboo known as indecipherable lower-class British accents. As Film Drunk puts it, perhaps it’s “just too British. Get it, guv? It’s funny cuz da blokes is just standin’ roun’ lookin at each ovvaz ow awkward loikes, innit. An’ den da lorrie droivah fell off da lift an’ ruined da bobby’s jumpah!”

My 1.24 Sundance dispatch: “Early last evening I saw Chris Morris‘s Four Lions — an unsettling, at times off-putting, at other times genuinely amazing black political comedy about London-based Jihadists — Islamic radicalism meets the Four Stooges/Keystone Cops. It’s sometimes shocking and sometimes heh-heh funny, and occasionally hilarious.

“Morris uses a verbal helter-skelter quality reminiscent of In The Loop, and yet the subject is appalling — a team of doofuses who dream of bombing and slaughtering in order to enter heaven and taste the fruit of virgins. It’s amazing and kind of pleasing that a comedy of this sort has been made, but I don’t want to think about the reactions in Manhattan once it opens.

“At times it felt flat and frustrating (I couldn’t understand half of it due to the scruffy British accents) and at other times I felt I was watching something akin to Dr. Strangelove — ghastly subject matter leavened with wicked humor. An agent I spoke to after the screening said, “I don’t know if the American public is ready for this film.” He’s probably right, but Four Lions is an absolute original — I’ve never seen anything like it, nor have I have ever felt so torn in my reactions. I’d love to see it again, but with subtitles.”

Yesterday I wrote that “nobody even thinks about Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis” these days “except for fans of Nick Tosches‘ Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams.” Which, of course, inspired a fresh attack from Some Came Running‘s Glenn Kenny .

Glenn wrote that I was “dying to throw a gratuitous insult at the ‘dweebs’ and ‘monks’ who value those Martin/Lewis films, but [am] also a little mindful of coming off like a closet Eloi. So [Wells] yokes the enthusiasm to the Tosches book, which he takes as some sort of signifier of cool, and posts, believing that he’s having it both ways. Insufferable, really.”

How’s that again?

I responded as follows: “I don’t know my Martin & Lewis films like I should (I like Sailor Beware and Artists & Models), but Tosches’ book — which IS an eternal signifier of cool as it continues to enjoy renown as one of the finest showbiz bios ever written — turned me on to the fabled genius of their live act when they were really hot & crackling — in the mid to late ’40s (and perhaps the very early ’50s).

“Martin & Lewis never really replicated on film what they struck with a match onstage, Tosches wrote. All I was saying in the post is that Martin & Lewis were comics of their time who aren’t, it seems, generally regarded, much less worshipped, as legendary world-class film comedians 70 years hence. (Largely because of the disparity between their nightclub act vs. films. ) Maybe the tide is turning and one day Average Joes will think of them in the same light as the Marx Brothers or Laurel & Hardy. All I was saying is that right now that regard doesn’t seem to be out there. Am I wrong?

From their Wikipedia bio: “In 1945, Dean Martin met a young comic named Jerry Lewis at the Glass Hat Club in New York, where both men were performing. Martin and Lewis’ official debut together occurred at Atlantic City’s 500 Club on July 24, 1946, and they were not a hit. The owner, Skinny D’Amato, warned them that if they didn’t come up with a better act for their second show later that same night, they would be fired.

“Huddling together out in the alley behind the club, Lewis and Martin agreed to go for broke, to throw out the pre-scripted gags that hadn’t worked and to basically just improvise their way through the act. Dean sang some songs, and Jerry came out dressed as a busboy, dropping plates and more or less making a shambles of both Martin’s performance and the club’s sense of decorum. They did slapstick, reeled off old vaudeville jokes, and did whatever else popped into their heads at the moment. This time, the audience doubled over in laughter.

“Their success at the 500 led to a series of well-paying engagements up and down the Eastern seaboard, culminating with a triumphant run at New York’s Copacabana. Club patrons were convulsed by the act, which consisted primarily of Lewis interrupting and heckling Martin while he was trying to sing, and ultimately the two of them chasing each other around the stage and having as much fun as possible.

“The secret, they have both said, is that they essentially ignored the audience and played to one another.”

“The Catholic Church can never recover as long as its Holy Shepherd is seen as a black sheep in the ever-darkening sex abuse scandal. The nuns have historically cleaned up the messes of priests. And this is a historic mess. Benedict should go home to Bavaria. Yup, we need a Nope — a nun who is pope.” — N.Y. Times columnist Maureen Dowd in her 3.27 Sunday column.

I’m online every day for too many hours on end, nosing around for anything/everything, and so I naturally missed the 3.24 debut of this lesson in contrasts. Which is brought down by repetition. (Alternate Boehner spews would have helped.) And which romanticizes a bill that “in lieu of a public option, delivers 32 million newly insured Americans to private insurers,” as Frank Rich notes in Sunday’s N.Y. Times.

“Democrats should not listen to the people who are now saying they shouldn’t attempt anything else big for a while because health care was such a bruising battle,” writes Bill Maher. “Wrong — because I learned something watching the lying bullies of the Right lose this one: when they’re losing, they squeal like a pig. They kept saying things like, the bill was being ‘shoved down our throats’ or the Democrats were ‘ramming it through.’ The bill was so big they couldn’t take it all at once!

“And I realized listening to this rhetoric that it reminded me of something: Tiger Woods‘ text messages to his mistress that were made public last week, where he said, and I quote, ‘I want to treat you rough, throw you around, spank and slap you and make you sore. I want to hold you down and choke you while I fuck that ass that I own. Then I’m going to tell you to shut the fuck up while I slap your face and pull your hair for making noise.’ Unquote.

“And this, I believe, perfectly represents the attitude Democrats should now have in their dealings with the Republican Party: “Shut the fuck up while I slap your face for making noise — now pass a cap-and-trade law, you stupid bitch, and repeat after me: ‘global warming is real!’

“The Democrats need to push the rest of their agenda while their boot is on the neck of the greedy, poisonous old reptile. Who cares if a cap-and-trade bill isn’t popular, neither was health care. Your poll numbers may have descended a bit, but so did your testicles.

“So don’t stop: we need to regulate the banks, we need to overhaul immigration, we need to end corporate welfare including at the Pentagon, we need to bring troops home from… everywhere, we need to end the drug war, and we need to put terrorists and other human rights violators on trial in civilian courts, starting with Dick Cheney.

“Democrats in America were put on earth to do one thing: drag the ignorant hillbilly half of this country into the next century, which in their case is the 19th — and by passing health care, the Democrats saved their brand. A few months ago, Sarah Palin mockingly asked them, ‘How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?’ Great, actually. Thanks for asking. And how’s that whole Hooked on Phonics thing working out for you?”

Newsarama‘s David Pepose speaks with writer Chuck Dixon about a four-issue Expandables comic-book series that will tell a prequel tale. Esteve Polls drew the images, etc.

The films hogging all the hype and hoopla don’t necessarily count long-term. Otto Preminger‘s Saint Joan is more highly esteemed than Victor Fleming‘s Joan of Arc. A Song Is Born is generally regarded as a lesser version of Ball of Fire. Nobody except for fans of Nick Tosches‘ Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams even thinks about Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, much less 3-Ring Circus. And I’d never even heard of Edge of Doom or Our Very Own before seeing this photo. They both starred Farley Granger.