Based in large part on Aldous Huxley's novel The Devil's of Loudun and the subsequent staging of the novel in a play in 1960 by John Whiting, this involves a complicated bit of French history that prisimed through the strange world of Ken Russell. It is based on a true story involving the controversial (for many disparate reasons) Cardinal Richelieu, a possession that "gripped" the French Piotou town of Loudun and a French priest, Urbain Grandier (portrayed by Oliver Reed in the film) that would eventually be burned at the stake for witchcraft after being put to the extraordinary question. He was accused of bringing on mass possession of a local convent of nuns by the demon Asmodai class of demons (Asmodeus is actually a demon from the much more ancient, and fire obsessed Zoroastrian religion of Persia).
Ken Russell has always been a controversial filmmaker, this particular film really had a reputation because of the possessed orgy scene. But with all of Russell's "Russellism's" the film stays pretty close of Huxley's book. Though the film villain Richelieu is seen to be to blame, it was later discovered that Grandier was most probably a victim of the conflict between the political minded, and in some cases Huguenot "helpful" Cardinal and the mother of the very young King Louis XIII, Marie de'Medici--the later of whom eventually lost her battle with him that ended in exile."
OK I had to do this...
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