You dislike my x-mas avatar? 
I would re-watch Loganâs Run for the same reason âŚ
Is there any Blu Ray release anywhere in the world or a really good high quality DVD release of Monte Hellmanâs âCHINA 9, LIBERTY 37â?
The Spanish DVD under the title, âClayton Drumm,â isnât too bad.
Thanks for the info!
This movieâs page in the SWDb has been upgraded to the new 3.0 format. Please have a look and let us know if you can add anything or there are corrections necessary.
This one has now been updated with A NEW POLL to vote on at the top of the page under the original post. Please find it and share your rating with the community.
As usual, link to forum page has also been added / fixed, poster art added, and broken links removed. The original memberâs post is as intended, at the top section.
Any issues, please say.
1 Like
Got 2 versions of this, both English prints and pan and scanned and with washed out colours:
98m version from UK EBay seller. Donât know whether speed is 24pfs or 25pfs. This appears to be uncut or at least has a load of nudity and sex scenes, probably the record for an Italian western. Jenny Agutter is starkers from about 10s on her first shotâŚwhy they had to give her an Irish accent though I donât know as it wasnât needed for the plot.
92m version from Mill Creek. Possibly a US TV print as missing all the nudity and sex scenes (yes 6m of these). Some shots have been zoomed in and a couple of dissolves added to hide the cuts.
1 Like
Now I want a 4K UHD of this 
1 Like
There is at least a good looking widescreen print around.
3 Likes
Warner keeps uploading clips Letâs all comment below it to demand a BluRay 
1 Like
The You Tube versions are the cut version. In case any anyone is wondering whatâs missing in the cut version:
- Jenny stripping naked in her first scene and going in the river (quick dissolve added to hide cut) (40s cut)
- Much of Jenny lying in the river, half asleep with her breasts visible under the water. The cut version reduces this to the minimum for continuity, as she needs to talk to Fabio on the riverbank, and zooms the image so that her breasts are below frame (about 20s cut but another 15s zoomed)
- When Jenny takes off her top to rub down Fabio, the image has been zoomed again to keep her breasts below frame
- Following 1m15s sex scene in the water between Fabio and Jenny excised completely
- Jennyâs stabbing of Warren excised completely. Scene truncated when he hits her after failing to shoot Fabio (52s)
- Later scene of Warren lying with knife in back cut by about half to remove sight of him trying to reach the knife (40s)
- Fabio punching Warrenâs brother in the cantina when disarmed man attacks Fabio after Fabio starts to walk out cut (8s)
- Canina ownerâs salacious comment to Warren about âspilling seedâŚall nightâ has been removed (4s)
- Jenny getting out of bathtub in hotel bedroom cut (5s)
- Following scene in which she starts kissing Fabio zoomed in again to remove sight of Jennyâs breasts
- Entire 3m10s sex scene at about 69m (in uncut version) on bed in hotel room when they stop off at a second town, accompanied by the Joan Baez-type pop song, has been cut entirely.
- The prostitute taking her clothes off in Fabioâs bedroom cut. Some other nude shots pan and scanned out of frame. About 15s-20s cut.
- Warrenâs brotherâs dialogue to Jenny about sitting on his face has been cut (2s)
These cuts I spotted add up to about 7m27s so i must be missing something else.
There is also an interview with Hellman on You Tube. He explains he was invited to Rome and offered a script written by the two Italians credited in the Italian print but didnât like it and had Jerry Harvey and Doug Venturelli re-write it. He says the Italian producer was OK with the re-writes so they went ahead. Apparently, Elliot Kastner was involved originally from the USA end but then dropped out. Itâs a short interview and doesnât deal with things like the casting of Jenny Agutter or who commissioned the soundtrack as the interviewer seemed more interested in whether Hellman owned a house near Sam Peckinpah or not. Hellman says Peckinpah was originally going to play the sheriff but doesnât explain why he played the writer instead. Personally, I am not sure why Peckinpah was hired at all - the cameo is needless and irrelevant to the narrative and hardly anyone in the audience would have recognised him. At the time Peckinpah had just made Convoy, his most successful film at the BO but didnât direct another film for several years.
To UK teenage boys in the 1970s and early 1980s Jenny Agutter was a goddess and always seemed to take her clothes off, even in Loganâs Run. Iâm not sure who has seen Equus but that has a lot of nudity as well (Peter Firth as well as Jenny and thankfully Richard Burton stays clothed) - probably the only reason to watch it as its pretentious drivel. Although of course, China 9, Liberty 37 wasnât screened in the UK.
3 Likes
An uncut version of China 9 Liberty 37 can be viewed on Amazon Prime in the UK. Not the greatest picture quality but acceptable!
3 Likes
It was screened at Notting Hill Gate Cinema in September 1978.
Thatâs interesting. Presumably on some kind of âclubâ basis as it never had a BBFC certificate. The Screen on the Green (or was in the Screen on the Hill) in Islington showed the unrated version of the horror film Re-animator (1985) on a club basis where you paid a 30p membership plus the ticket price. The BBFC-approved version had been heavily cut.
I wonder if China 9 Liberty 37 got screened at the Scala in Kings Cross also. I saw a load of uncertificated films there during the 1980s and 1990s before it was shut down after showing A Clockwork Orange without Kubrickâs permission.
A screening at the 32nd Edinburgh International Film Festival in August 1978, another in London (below) and then it disappeared. It resurfaced on BBC2 in October 1987 in a back-to-back broadcast with the cult classic âTwo-Lane Blacktopâ, in a lousy pan and scan version that was said to be the only one available. Regarding the Notting Hill screening, local authorities held the legal power to license cinemas and sometimes did permit screenings of unclassified films. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea must have been particularly liberal and granted permission for the Monte Hellman film.
Source below: (Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle, 22nd September, 1978)
Aside from a few festival showings it was a straight to television release (1hr 43min) in the United States in 1980. There was talk of changing the title to âClayton and Catherineâ as the original could be mistaken for a football result.
2 Likes
Thanks - some interesting movies being screened there. Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Les Valeuses were both BBFC rejections that had GLC X ratings. Excellent all-nighter at the Ravel. Those were the days.
I donât know whether the GLC had given an X rating to China 9 Liberty 37. That wouldnât be recorded anywhere.
2 Likes
Islingtonâs Screen on the Green had the UK premiere of Monte Hellmanâs âCockfighterâ in an X-rated programme with Francesco Rosiâs âLucky Lucianoâ on 11th February 1977. Plus another screening the following night. Membership was apparently free.
1 Like
China 9 was also never released in Germany.
His 2 earlier westerns premiered on TV, they also got no theatrical release.
1 Like
Cockfighter has always had trouble in the UK because of animal cruelty laws. The BBFC advised the distributor they would have to cut cut it heavily so it was never certified.
There was an abortive attempt to get it screened at the Edinburgh film festival in 2006.
1 Like
Yeah, they had a more laissez-faire attitude to such matters in the '70s.