Here is a suggestion to everyone! As most of you know, it is usually hard to wait for the official DVD of Charlie Chan Films and most of you have bought from grey market sellers. I think it is fine if you are not patient, however if you do buy the grey market Chan DVD's, Please, when the official version of those movies are released, please do not resell those bootlegs. Promptly Destroy Them And Buy The Official Versions! I know I Will!

You know, how I found out about Volume 1 of the Charlie Chan set was through a freak set of accidents. I was talking with my Mom about the lack of availability of these movies. She loves these movies and hasn't seen them on since 1998, except for the Chanthology which I picked up back in 2004.

Literally, two weeks before my mom's birthday last year, I told her my philosophy on these movies, and it's still something I hold true to this day:

If you can purchase a legal copy, you should do that as opposed to going through the black market.

If you cannot purchase a legal copy, then we're talking about material:

If the material is what makes it illegal, then you should not be able to purchase it.

If the material is not what makes it unavailable, then you should be able to purchase it through these sellers.

Upon having this discussion, I went on Ebay thinking exactly that... I was going to find some movies that were gray market copies. What I found were six copies of Volume 1. My curiosity was piqued and I clicked on that link and saw the 20th Century Fox logo. I knew right then and there that my mom had the perfect gift for her birthday. ;) I went to Best Buy the next day to buy it.

Everything you wrote, I agree with. I have refused to get any of the Fox Chans as I know Fox will be relesing them. It is the Monogram Chans that might take longer to release. Last year, my boss bought me some of the grey market Monogram Chans (not available in MGM's Chanthology) to show at work to the seniors (I work at a Retirement Community). When Warners does officially release them, I will promtly DESTROY the grey market DVD's. Then there are some other grey market DVD's of movies that you may never see like Disney's "Song Of The South" or the uncensored, untampered, politically incorrect version of "Fantasia"?

Dear Sam,

I feel that there is an irony regarding the "grey market" versions of the Charlie Chan movies, and that is that the relative success of these "underground" Chan film sales may have been at least a partial factor in MGM Home Entertainment and 20th Century-Fox deciding to release their holdings. Warner Brothers is not far behind, evidently.

For too long, the only way that fans of Charlie Chan have been able to obtain the entire catalog of non-"lost" Charlie Chan films has been through "grey market" sellers. This has served, in my humble opinion, to help keep the interest in Charlie Chan alive and flourishing for a goodly number of years until, today, when we find ourselves at the threshold of something of a golden age of Charlie Chan. It is conceivable that one day soon, ALL available Chan films will be available on commercially produced, authorized DVDs.

I can say with some certainty that when all Charlie Chan movies are finally available via authorized material, the "grey market" Chan versions will begin to disappear. I would have loved to have had the choice of purchasing authorized Chan films from the beginning, but, with few exceptions (such as the 1989 set of Fox Chans released by Key Video), this was not the case. Were we to have awaited such a time, few if any of us would have had the ability to see the majority of Charlie Chan's adventures. In fact, this would still be the case. Yes, there were the occasional Charlie Chan marathons on AMC and later on FMC and several Monograms shown on TMC, but, as we sadly know, this all came to a halt in 2003 with the fiasco involving Fox.

Until the time that ALL Charlie Chan films are made available on authorized DVDs, all we have to fill the gaps are through "grey market" versions. When the happy day arrives that we no longer need to rely on these inferior products, I will be in the front row cheering as loudly as anyone. However, I must admit that I will not be inclined to destroy any of the "grey market" material that has given me so many hours of enjoyment, not to mention knowledge of Charlie Chan, over the years.

As I mentioned above, I believe that the unauthorized versions of Charlie Chan movies have actually done something of a service to the studios who are finally seeing fit to produce and release Charlie Chan DVDs. They, albeit, unwittingly, have served to help keep the popularity of the character alive and in the public eye until the present time, I feel. Now, as we are seeing, the authorized material is selling extremely well, netting these companies a well-deserved profit...FINALLY!

Sincerely,
Rush Glick