China 9, Liberty 37

"There ain't no soft-hearted gunfighters" says Matthew Sebanek (Warren Oates) to Clayton Drumm (Fabio Testi) late in Monte Hellman's lyrical western "China 9 Liberty 37" a/k/a "Amore, piombo e furore". The English title reflects the words on a crossroad's sign shown at the start of the film.

Hellman fans will be happy to finally find this film available on DVD, as a 2005 release by Mill Creek Entertainment. Although the IBDb does not yet link to it, Amazon has it listed as "China 9 Liberty 37/Gone With the West". The second movie on the DVD, "Gone With the West" (a/k/a "Little Moon and Old Jug"), is a James Caan-Sammy Davis Jr. western best described as "The Rat Pack on LSD". It is a horrible western made even worse by the condition of the print they used to make the DVD, but it does feature one of the most intense cat-fights in cinema history.

The print for "China 9" is a bit better but suffers from a poor "pan and scan" full-screen treatment and weak audio tracks. It also has some editing glitches, which probably resulted from the need to cobble together a decent print for transfer to DVD. And I suspect the original release was longer than this 98minute version.

Hellman and Oates also collaborated on "The Shooting" and if you enjoyed that effort you should really like "China 9". In "China 9" Oates plays a retired gunfighter mining gold on land he refuses to sell to the railroad. Testi (the best of a long line of English-challenged pretty-boy European actors who worked in the western genre in the 60's and 70's) is hired by the railroad to kill Oates. But the two gunfighters hit it off and Testi refuses to complete the job. In the meantime Oates' wife Catherine (Jenny Agutter) comes on to Testi. They run off together believing she has killed Matthew, but he survives and begins to hunt them down. To add additional complications to the story, the railroad recruits a squad of gunfighters to kill both Matthew and Clayton.

Clayton Drum is good western hero. Although he drinks a lot of cocaine based tonic, he maintains his professional integrity and refuses to sell out to the wild west show promoters or the dime novelists. The world may be changing and making him irrelevant, but he sticks to his principles. "My life is not for sale".

Fans of "The Hunting Party" will find a familiar storyline, Fellini fans will find a nice homage to their favorite director, and Sam Peckinpah fans will find an actual appearance-while a small speaking part it is more than just a cameo.

The action sequences are extremely well staged, although the effects are on the cheap side. The action in the big final showdown scene is totally credible and leaves one wondering why other directors can't exercise their imaginations and come up with equally plausible shootouts. Plus there is an extremely nice twist to the story's resolution that you don't see coming. Finally, Hellman goes out on a slick "mise en scene" shot that actually advances the story a final notch.

"China 9" is an absolute must-see for fans of Jenny Agutter. Hellman liked to give his films an overexposed grainy look (as if the film stock was pushed a couple of steps in processing). Combined with minimal makeup this gave his heroines a strikingly haunting and earthy beauty, check out Millie Perkins in "The Shooting" and "Ride the Whirlwind". Like Perkins, Agutter has never looked better and is more than credible as the catalyst of this love triangle.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

One of the few (only?) westerns where sex is the main motivator, a wonderful spaghetti western with Fabio Testi and Jenny Agutter, with Warren Oates and a rare performance by Sam Peckingpaugh. An important film in the ouvre of Monte Hellman, quintessential 70's cult director; a man who has made more great films than Coppola yet remains mostly unknown in his home country. See "Two-Lane Blacktop," "Cockfighter," and "The Shooting."

Named after a mysterious signpost in Beaumont, southeast Texas, set between U.S. 90 and the adjacent Southern Pacific railroad tracks, that inexplicably reads "China 9 Liberty 37", with the genre fading quick into obscurity in both sides of the Atlantic, this, Monte Hellman's and Warren Oates' final western, seems to be trying to succeed despite itself, setting pitfalls for itself and falling into them but still somehow remaining a formidable picture, not just worthy of bearing Monte Hellman's name (a vastly under-appreciated American auteur with an incredible run in the early 70's that saddly never took off) but doing justice to it.

If the movie can work despite Fabio Testi's unintelligible Italian accent, then it can overcome almost everything. I say almost because Pino Donaggio's score (a jumbled mess of muzak apart from the fitting opening credits theme that seems to be consciously channeling Morricone) defies overcoming and Hellman's inexplicable fixation to not only squeeze a heartfelt romance out of two actors (Testi and Jenny Agutter) who simply don't have it in them to look "in love" but to go ahead and film not one but two long "making love" scenes, y'know, the ones where the two lovers are lost passionately in each other's eyes, kiss like fishes and rock back and forth in a rhythmic staccato all of which is played to horrible "making love" muzak, threaten to throw the whole thing permanently off.

But just when you think he's lost control, all Hellman needs to do to suck the viewer back in is cut to Warren Oates. A man not only made from that late 60's mold of cinematic badass but also a naturally charismatic actor who gave some truly electrifying performances for Hellman (COCKFIGHTER and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP), Oates, as the grizzly homesteader fighting the railroad company he once worked for that is now trying to steal his land, makes the movie, has the gravitational pull to keep everything together. Even in his early 50's he has so much charisma he can spare some for bland hunk Fabio Testi.

With the spaghetti western dead by 1978 (the last major release was MANNAJA the previous year - and the Italian genre industry moving on to a not-so-eclectic mix of MAD MAX and JAWS rip-offs to sustain itself in its waning years, before the advent of home video and movies opening worldwide killed it off) and Clint Eastwood continuing to carry the American western on his shoulders almost single-handedly, China 9 Liberty 37 is more of a throwback to Hellman's previous westerns, a particular niche unto themselves that take from both national western schools but subscribe to neither, than anything contemporary, certainly not as violent and cynic as most 70's westerns. Seen with regards to an overall oeuvre, China takes its proper place somewhere between THE SHOOTING and RIDE THE WHIRLWIND. More the sum of their author's fixations, clearly works bearing a distinct auteurial mark, Hellman's westerns seem like the late 60's equivalent of Budd Boetticher's Ranown westerns. The minimalism of the plot, the isolated settings, the lone female characters... but that's for another post.

A somewhat odd spaghetti Western. I am not familiar with this Monte Hellman, but at first I thought he was trying to be Sergio Leone. Later, I thought he was trying to outdo Leone. I am not sure if the setting is supposed to be southeast Texas, even though there are towns named China and Liberty there, but the countryside there is wooded, and even a bit swampy. Excellent photography of the arid Spanish landscapes. The sound was awful, though, with score and background noise often drowning out dialog. Fabio Testi was the wooden anti-hero, with a serious Italian accent. Warren Oates was the only really well-developed character. Jenny Agutter was oh, so beautiful. But she was alternately reserved and wanton, so it was hard to figure out her character. (You really have to see the uncut version. It is available if you search hard enough for it.) There were a few anachronisms and plot holes but not terribly so. A pet peeve of mine is people suffering grievous wounds, like gunshots and stabbings, and seemingly having no ill effects after three days. I know it moves the narrative along, but sheesh. Anyway it was OK, and just a bit better due to Agutter.

This moves at an unhurried pace, and you may feel as if you've seen much of it before, especially if you're a spaghetti western fan. But it's worth seeing for the character played by Warren Oates, a former gunfighter whose behavior swings from the sympathetic to the unforgivable and almost back again. In a modest Western like this, it's a pleasant surprise to see ambiguous characters. So that his conflict with Fabio Testi, a younger gunfighter who steals Oates' wife, is full of uncertainty. For all the familiar trappings, you're uncertain how it will end; and that should keep you watching. As the object of desire, Jenny Agutter is constrained by a mumbling Irish brogue and an under-written part. But you can see why Testi is smitten with her. Bottom line: see this for Oates, a great actor in a worthy role.