Hi everyone! I am still alive. I just found out about Charlie Chan Volume 3. The most puzzling thing, and I hope Rush can clear this up, But How did Fox get its hands on "The Black Camel"? I thought Warners owned the rights to this title? I had heard that Warners probably licensed this title to Fox? Which has me wondering, Does anyone know if Warner would allow Fox to distribute the Monogram Chan Films of the late 1940's? This could allow Fox to continue "The Charlie Chan Collection" DVD's to continue for many years to come?
Re: Would Warners license the Monogram Chans to Fox?
Dear Sam,
Our own Steve O. is our resident expert in such matters, and I will happily yield to his knowledge on this subject. However, if I may make a quess, I would think that Warner Brothers holding rights to "The Black Camel" may date back to the late 1960s when Warner Brothers/Seven Arts was engaged in syndicating Charlie Chan films (all Fox films). In 1968, there was even a showing of these films at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and it cannot be mere coincidence that this happened at the same time that Warner/7 Arts was involved with a Chan "revival." Interestingly, there was even a Charlie Chan "impersonator," accompanied by his "wife and 12 children" at Expo '67 in Montreal as a part of that promotion (see, please, the article in the "Misc." section of our Study.)
Now, as to Fox issuing the Monogram Chans, talk is that Warner Brothers wants to release their Chan holdings in the near future, but, presently, they are seeking the best prints available for a few titles...no easy task, evidently.
Re: Would Warners license the Monogram Chans to Fox?
Hi Sam,
The only thing I can add is that Warner Home Video, as a normal course of business, does not license anything out. That's what makes the CAMEL situation so unique; it's not something they normally do. Quite frankly since CAMEL was the most marketable of the Warner holdings it is quite surprising they would let go of it. That suggest that other factors, known only to the two studios, were at play here.
As for the Monograms, I would doubt Warners would license those out. But as Rush said, they have a major hurdle to climb in that they need to find good 35mm prints first. The Monogram library (which also includes the Bowery Boys) went through several ownership changes over the years and prior owners did not maintain these prints very well. There are 16mm prints in existence but even those are not in the best of shape and the quality dropoff between 35mm and 16mm is fairly dramatic and will readily seen on a DVD.
Hi Steve O, I am curious, with todays technology, even without the best prints or negative, couldn't Warners just "Digitally Remaster" the Monogram Chans? Couldn't Warner digitally remove any imperfections from a film print?
Great question. Technology can only go so far. For example, a lot of computer based restorations are based on fixing bad frames of a print by using good ones immediately before/after the good one. If the source print has imperfections throughout, then this process becomes infeasible, both practically and financially. Restoring films is extremely expensive. Only if it is predicted to be a strong seller will a studio be willing to invest in it.
Also, it is best to work with a print as close to the original negative as possible. Every time you go a generation removed the picture loses detail and becomes softer. For that same reason it is much preferred to use 35mm over 16mm. A lot of the grey market DVDs of the Monograms were sourced from 16mm prints which is why a lot of them looked washed out, overly dark, etc. Contrast that to the Chanthology DVDs and one can see how important it is to have a good starting point.
By the way, whenever you see a DVD with "Digitaly Remastered" on it, that's just marketing hype. All DVDs by definition are "digitally remastered" since they are mastered for the digital domain. There is a big difference between a true restoration (like what Fox did with their Chans) and just remastering.
I apologize for the long winded post, but I hope this makes some sense.
Thanks Steve O for the info! Is there really a difference between "Digitally Remastered" and "Digitally Mastered"? I have seen both of those expressions used? I have always thought that "Digitally Mastered" meant that it was mastered from a film print derived from the original negative while "Digitally Remastered" meant that they used a computer to remove any imperfections from an existing film print which has been run through many a film projectors?
I see "digitally mastered" "remastered" as meaning essentially the same thing (transferring film to the digital domain). By definition all DVDs are digitally mastered.
"Restoration" is the process of returning a film to its original condition (or close to it as possible). A film can be digitally remastered but not restored. Restoration is very expensive and is typcially done for major studio releases (Fox, Warner, Paramount) and not done for the $1 DVDs, Alpha type releases.
