Not On DVD: China 9 Liberty 37

China 9 Liberty 37 (1978)
starring: Warren Oates, Fabio Testi, Jenny Agutter, Sam Peckinpah
dir. Monte Hellman

Now I know that some people are going to say this film is out on DVD. Well, it is, but not in the way it should be. What exists in at least four versions (that I can find) is a truncated, edited for television, pan and scan version. This basically means that this film is not out on DVD.

I know very little about this movie other than it was directed by Monte Hellmen, it has an impressive cast and it was co-scripted by Jerry Harvey, the ill-fated program director of the now defunct Z Channel.

(I'm taking a basic plot description from IMDB here, so please forgive any errors.)

The central plot is about a condemned gunman who is given a reprieve on the condition that he murders a Rancher to help out the railway company. This is just the first act, as the Gunman can't bring himself to kill the Rancher and all sorts of things fly off the handle after that.

Hellman's work has always been a bit of a crapshoot on DVD. There are a ton of different prints of The Shooting (1966) running around and Ride In The Whirlwind (1965) as well as Cockfighter (1974) go in and out of print with variations of quality. It seems that only Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) has gotten the DVD release it deserves. It's a shame because it is a very interesting body of work and well worth viewing. But all of the above mentioned titles have been released uncut and letterboxed at one point in time.

So why not China 9? It's a good question and I have no idea. It seems that it has enough history and name power for geeks to want it. I can't say if the film holds any artistic merit since I've never seen it. That doesn't mean it shouldn't see its day in court. Like all things put on trial, it should be represented in the best possible way, uncut and letterboxed in the way the filmmaker originally intended.