The Devil Is a Woman (1974) User Reviews

THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN (Damiano Damiani, 1975) **1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 6/10 · 21 March 2009]

According to the Leonard Maltin Film Guide, this film merits a BOMB and is "indifferently acted…technically atrocious"…he must have been thinking of THE KILLER NUN (1978; see below)! What we really have here is an excellent cast of internationally renowned actors involved in a serious, arty exercise in "Nunsploitation": Glenda Jackson stars as the iron-willed Sister Geraldine who heads a strange hybrid of mental asylum and tourist hostel in Rome, with Adolfo Celi her right-hand man and Father Confessor to the 'inmates'. The latter are an eccentric set of ecclesiastical misfits – Francisco Rabal is a communist bishop from Cuba, Arnoldo Foa' a Polish monsignor who collaborated with the Nazi regime in WWII, etc. – and wealthy degenerates – Gabriele Lavia is a Prince unhealthily obsessed with his own sister and so on; running the day-to-day operations of the establishment with an equally iron fist is Bolivian émigré Lisa Harrow (who, when married to the local Police Chief, fell for an anarchist and later organized the former's death in an ambush). The coming of historian Claudio Cassinelli (on an invitation by Foa', who needs help to write his memoirs in order to exculpate himself in the eyes of his superiors!) slowly but surely turns the entire order of things in disarray: contacting Lavia's sister on his behalf against Jackson's specific instructions (an innocent and trivial action which, indirectly, leads to Lavia's suicide a' la ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST [1975]), reawakening Harrow's feelings of love for another man (she had previously turned those onto her pet feline or nightly bouts of masturbation!), etc. Eventually, all of the 'inmates' are liberated by Cassinelli's presence, revolt and go back out into the real world – including Harrow who shacks up with the writer himself; unfortunately, as a result of Jackson's malicious misinformation that she is terminally ill, her long-dormant sexuality blooms into full-blown nymphomania (which includes sleeping with the, by her own admission, disgusting condominium handyman) and, while on their way to see a doctor by train, she runs out on her mate altogether! Some time later, just as he is about to commit himself to a new relationship with the briefly-glimpsed Ely Galeani, Cassinelli returns, on a hunch, to Jackson's hostel and, to his shock, discovers that all the inmates have come back and become their own previous subservient, resigned selves (he now also finds among them Lavia's gorgeous sister, the woefully underused Adele Sperati)! Director Damiano Damiani has made an eclectic bunch of interesting movies over the years and this, while perhaps not among his best work, is certainly one of them, aided in no small measure by another of legendary composer Ennio Morricone's weird, choral scores. From the cast, newcomer Harrow is a revelation (in every sense of the word, since she indulges in full frontal nudity during that aforementioned handyman encounter): this is still her best-known film – although she would later go on to have a son by actor Sam Neill. Personally, it was a joy for me to watch 3 actors from films I dearly love – Celi (THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY [1974]), Foa' (THE 100 HORSEMEN [1965]) and Rabal (NAZARIN [1959], VIRIDIANA [1961], BELLE DE JOUR [1967]) – sparring verbally on screen in their scenes together. One final note: ironically, it may be that this film is not better-known because the two English titles accorded it (including THE TEMPTER) were already attached to more popular movies!

Exploration the pshcho-sexual dark side of Catholicism.

[preston_page · 29 April 2000]

I haven't seen this film since it was released in the US as "Devil Is A Woman" in 1975, but the story and images are still vivid. For me, it was one of those films that changed forever the possibilities of cinema. This is a must see gem.

A different twist on the "devil movie"

[lazarillo · 24 July 2008]

I accidentally mistook this for an Italian "Exorcist" rip-off (it has the same alternate title at Alberto De Martino's "Anticristo"). But even though I saw it by mistake, I ended up really liking it. It somewhat resembles "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", but filtered through an Italian Catholic sensibility. Claudio Cassanelli plays a writer who agrees to ghost-write the autobiography of a monsignor who had collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. He moves with the priest to a kind of religious asylum headed by a very controlling Mother Superior (Glenda Jackson, basically playing an ecclesiastical version of "Nurse Ratchet").Also staying at the asylum is a nymphomaniac (Lisa Harrow) who betrayed her husband for her lover, resulting in the former's death, and a man who has fallen in love with his sister. The writer's presence upsets things at the asylum--there is a suicide and several patients leave (one priest even leaves the priesthood). The writer falls in love (or at least strongly in lust) with the nymphomaniac, and the tyrannical Mother Superior comes to believe that he just might be the Devil himself. But a couple more twists at the end make it more than a little ambiguous just who the real "Great Tempter" of the title is. . .

Claudio Cassanelli was one of the most underrated Italian actors. He always comes as a very nice guy, very different from Jack Nicholson who played a similarly disruptive influence in "Cuckoo's Nest". This actually works though in maintaining the deep ambiguity of the story. Glenda Jackson is very good too (she and Cassanelli both dub their own voices). The movie does not shy away from making some strong critiques of the Catholic Church--the monsignor is excommunicated at one point, not because he admittedly collaborated with the Nazis, but because he threatens to expose that his superiors did as well (perhaps, it's implied, even the pope).

The talented director Damiano Damiani later WOULD do a kind of "Exorcist" knock-off with "Amityville Horror 2". While that was definitely a superior horror movie, this much more subtle and subversive exercise is actually quite a bit more effective. This movie does have SOME exploitative elements. Lisa Harrow (an Australian actress who later married Sam Neal) has some memorable nude scenes as the guilt-ridden nymphomaniac. The lovely Ely Galeani is also in this, but unfortunately wasted in a pointless cameo (although she was no doubt glad to be in something of this quality since by that time her career had largely been relegated to softcore porn movies). Perhaps the best thing though is the musical score which would do ANY horror movie proud. Recommended.

Worth seeing for Glenda Jackson alone!

[twain-2 · 2 March 1999]

I'm sorry this film didn't get more widespread attention. I believe I found only one real review, and in that Leonard Matlin called this a bomb.

Had Mr. Maltin been raised in Catholic school he might think differently. What he calls outrageous and ludicrous, I called high school. As the Mother Superior of a convent, Glenda Jackson wields power in its most vicious and devastating forms. And as she as she destroys the people in her care, she herself becomes her own victim, also. Get it! Demand it! See it!

A fascinating psychological portrayal of guilt and shame.

[saywhat2 · 19 September 2001]

I saw this film more than 25 years ago but I still think of it often. This is because it portrays the role of religion/the church as an external (outer) force which works with the internal drives of personality. It presents the humiliation and shame of the main character as something that will not be eradicated by removing her from a place that appears to be causing the shame, guilt and humiliation. These drives are often internal--the church didn't cause them. This movie portrays the church as a place that uses these negative constructs for its own purpose (and its evil!). With or without the church/religion, we are all fighting these demons anyway. Religion gives them a structure and way to deal with them. Psychotherapy works better!