{"id":367287,"date":"2026-10-07T22:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/367287\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T22:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:40:07","slug":"rape-of-christ-censored-scene-restored-to-the-devils-before-nyc-screening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/367287\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Rape of Christ\u2019 censored scene restored to \u2018The Devils\u2019 before NYC screening"},"content":{"rendered":"

The notorious \u201cRape of Christ\u201d sequence removed from the 1971 film \u201cThe Devils<\/a>\u201d has been restored<\/a> in time for the movie\u2019s screening next week<\/a> at the New York Film Festival.<\/p>\n

The controversial footage once feared lost features nuns sexually defiling a sculpted figure of Jesus on a crucifix, according to the Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n

Director Ken Russell reportedly said in a 1995 interview that the scene nixed by censors<\/a> 55 years ago was lost to history and had \u201cprobably been destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

But audiences will finally see a \u201cprivately constructed\u201d 2004 edit of the movie made under Russell\u2019s supervision.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen Russell\u2019s infamous adaptation of Aldous Huxley\u2019s novel, about the apparent possession of a group of nuns after one (Vanessa Redgrave) accuses a priest (Oliver Reed) of collaborating with the devil, is at long last available in its full, uncensored splendor,\u201d reads a promotion for the NYFF\u2019s presentation of \u201cThe Devils\u201d running from Oct. 15 to Oct. 20 at Lincoln Center.<\/p>\n

The 114-minute movie is screening on 35mm film. A wider audience will have one week to see \u201cThe Devil\u201d starting on Oct. 16 when Warner Bros.\u2019 specialty film label Clockwork releases the enhanced reboot in theaters nationwide.<\/p>\n

Late film critic Roger Ebert said in his 1971 review<\/a> that the polarizing horror flick served as a timely metaphor for the Vietnam War<\/a>, which the U.S. was fighting at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know about anyone else, but frankly, I left the Cinema Theater feeling like a new, a different, and, yes, a better person,\u201d he wrote of the 111-minute version of the British film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The notorious \u201cRape of Christ\u201d sequence removed from the 1971 film \u201cThe Devils\u201d has been restored in time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[135875,135876,9,14115,56,63,65,64,94810,135873,135874,135872,28053],"class_list":["post-367287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-censored","tag-ken-russell","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-film-festival","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nyff","tag-rape-of-christ","tag-restored","tag-the-devils","tag-warner-bros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}