<p>THE DEVILS: KEN RUSSELL: POCKET MOVIE GUIDE</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>By Jeremy Mark Robinson.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>'P' The Devils is a celebrated 1971 picture based on the Loudun demonology trials in the 17th century, scripted by Ken Russell from Aldous Huxley&rsquo;s The Devils of Loudun (1952) and the 1961 play by John Whiting (1918-63). The Devils was undoubtedly director Russell&rsquo;s most notorious hour. It was the site of conflicts between the filmmakers, the American film studio (Warners), the censors and the critics.&nbsp;</p><p>'P' A tour-de-force of direction (and organization and production), the most significant contribution to The Devils may well be the screenplay &ndash; and Ken Russell has the screen credit for the script. Which makes The Devils all the more remarkable. (And as if writing the script and directing the movie wasn&rsquo;t enough, Russell also co-produced it.)&nbsp;</p><p>'P' It&rsquo;s clear from the first few minutes of The Devils that Ken Russell was on fire as a filmmaker when he made this picture (he was certainly on fire at the period in his film career &ndash; not only The Devils but also The Music Lovers and The Boy Friend were playing at the same time in central London theatres. Incredible &ndash; I can&rsquo;t think of another British movie-maker with three big (and very different) movies in release at the same time).&nbsp;</p><p>'P' Ken Russell was happy with what he&rsquo;d achieved in The Devils: &lsquo;The Devils is the most successful film I&rsquo;ve done, insofar as what I expected is there. The effects I aimed at seemed to work&rsquo;. In The Devils, Russell was operating with a giant canvas, and you can see that the director is in complete control of the form, and of this movie (which gives the audience confident in the storytellers; this movie really knows what it&rsquo;s doing).&nbsp;</p><p>'P' This book about The Devils contains lengthy chapters on every aspect of director Ken Russell. A filmmaker like no other, Russell remains one of cinema&rsquo;s extraordinary talents, a creator of masterpieces such as The Devils, Tommy and The Music Lovers, and a body of work that flies from the pastoral, Romantic lyricism of Delius: Song of Summer and Elgar to the wild extremes of Lisztomania, Altered States and Mahler.&nbsp;</p><p>'P' Includes: filmographies; resources; video and DVD availability; quotes from Russell; and fans on The Devils.&nbsp;</p><p>'P' Fully illustrated, including many images of the movie, and Ken Russell&rsquo;s cinema. Bibliography and notes. ISBN 9781861717368. 244 pages.</p><p>www.crmoon.com</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>JEREMY MARK ROBINSON has written many critical studies, including Hayao Miyazaki, Arthur Rimbaud, Jean-Luc Godard, and The Sacred Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, plus literary monographs on: J.R.R. Tolkien; Samuel Beckett; Thomas Hardy; Andr&eacute; Gide; Robert Graves; and Lawrence Durrell.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>It&#39;s amazing for me to see my work treated with such passion and respect. There is nothing resembling it in the U.S. in relation to my work.</p><p>Andrea Dworkin (on Andrea Dworkin)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>This model monograph - it is an exemplary job, and I&#39;m very proud that he has accorded me a couple of mentions... The subject matter of his book is beautifully organised and dead on beam.</p><p>Lawrence Durrell (on The Light Eternal: A Study of J.M.W. Turner)</p><p>&nbsp;</p>