The popular broadway musical transforms to motion picture releasal has a little unknow factoid until very recently, the only version available was a horribly mutilated edition that was the result of censorship and crappy editing beyond the control of the director. In fact, it was largely that horrible version that was shown in theaters back in 1972 when this came out (more detail on that below). Due to this fact, many of you have probably dismissed this film as a lousy and cheesy mess that isn't worth bothering with. The version here is the corrected version as envisioned by the director and author when it was created, and it is definitely worth a second look. Jack Warner (head of the studio back then) was a very right wing jingoistic patriot who was close friends with Richard Nixon, and Nixon was obsessed with his enemies list, particularly those he perceived in Hollywood. He therefore exerted a great deal of pressure to limit or prevent art / books / movies that he somehow saw as (shall we say) not helpful to his political ideas. 1776 contained historical speeches and a song called cool conservative men that wasn't particularly flattering to Nixon's views. Furthermore, the depression and reluctance among many Americans during this period of the Revolution has many parallels to anti-war unhappiness during the 1970s phase of the war in Vietnam. Nixon thus asked Warner to censor the hell out of this film, which Warner did. The result was a mess. The new corrected version ...