Dear Swingman,

I understand your frustration, especially with regard to the "Our Gang" comedies which I grew up watching on television. Whle these films may have lapsed into public domain as you suggest, the same was not the case with the Charlie Chan films. While certain studios may have been careless with what they controlled, all Chan films remain under strict copyright control.

20th Century-Fox has never relinquished the rights to its Charlie Chan movies, although it has allowed others to hold distribution rights at one point or another. I am specifically thinking of Warner Brothers/Seven Arts distributing the Fox Charlie Chan films in the late 1960s.

The Monogram Chans have passed through a lineage that now has eleven of them under the umbrella of Warner Brothers, and six controlled by MGM. As we know, MGM Home Entertainment released their six Chans a few years ago, and, it is rumored, as mentioned above, that Warner Brothers will be issuing theirs in the future.

Whether it is the fault of studios' shoddy bookkeeping, negligence, etc. that certain films from the Charlie Chan series have been "lost" or have fallen into a sorry state of preservation, I cannot say. However, I can say that these films are not in the public domain, even though some "grey market" sellers would tell us otherwise!

Hopefully, today, all studios are taking greater pains to preserve the pictures that they control, and the problems to which you allude are not going to happen in the future. My humble opinion of the often less than adequate methods used decades ago was more a result of never dreaming that their older work would be much valued in the future. Certainly the huge video market that we have in our day wasn't even dreamed of in the wildest imaginings of studio powers-that-were!

Sincerely,
Rush Glick

Dear Rush: With all the talk of the release of the Chan films by MGM and Warner Brothers where do the Roland Winters films fit in? I know they are not nearly as good as the earlier ones, but still not so bad and I for one would welcome their release. Sincerely, Russell Rubert P.S. How about the TV shows. I realize they are even further down the "food chain", but completist that I am, would like them out there as well.

Dear Russell,

The Roland Winters Charlie Chan films, six in number, would most certainly be a part of the hoped-for Warner Brothers release. As for "The New Adventures of Charlie Chan" television show from 1957, I have heard absolutely nothing regarding an eventual commercial release. The only way that we can obtain copies at present is through the "grey market" sellers, and I have seen them listed on eBay with some regularity. I purchased a set from a seller of good repute who is listed in our "Links" page, and am pleased, overall, with the quality of the product. Hopefully, one day, these TV Chans, starring J. Carrol Naish will be made available through some "legitimate" means, however, I would not hold my breath awaiting such an eventuality!

Sincerely,
Rush Glick

Thanks for the explaination, Rush.

I wonder, then, why there hasn't been "suitable" prints found for the rest of the Monogram Chans then?

I hear ya on your take of the preservation issue - hence my use of the phrase "lack of foresight".

I remember reading somewhere that more than a few studios decades ago used to re-master/make new copies of their catalog on new stock every 20 years or so as a form of preservation.....

Monogram Studios wasn't known as a "Poverty Row" studio for nothing. Everything was done on the cheap which included asset preservation. They simply didn't have the means to preserve their prints the way the major studios did.

As Rush said, Warners is the latest in a long line of owners of these prints. They can only work with what they inherited, which isn't much. Consequently they need to upgrade the quality of some of their titles to get a marketable DVD produced. In my opinion, the Monograms couldn't be in better hands since Warners is known for having one of the best restoration teams around.

As for the timing of the releases, it is my speculation that they are waiting for Fox to exhaust their titles before putting theirs on the market. From a business perspective it makes more sense to do it that way.

Regarding "public domain"...very few films from the major studios are in the public domain. Bootleggers will tell you otherwise as a way to justify their sales. The films that tend to be in public domain are those made by independent studios that no longer exist.

Steve