THE DEVILS was the Ken Russell film version of the controversial play by John Whiting The story based on Aldous Huxley&s THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN concerns controversial 17th century French priest Urbain Grandier whose radical political & religious notions & profligate sex life earn him many enemies When a group of nuns appears to have been &bewitched& by Grandier his rivals feed on the resulting mass hysteria using this incident as an excuse to have the priest arrested Refusing to confess to being in league with Satan & to renounce his &heretical& views Grandier undergoes appalling tortures & is finally burned at the stake Vanessa Redgrave co-stars as the head nun