The Movies Unlimited site has this nice blurb to say about Fox's plans to finish off the Chans. Unfortunately the news isn't as good about the Monograms:

"The nice people at Fox tell us the fifth and final Charlie Chan collection will be out sometime in the fall. Keep in mind that Chanthology is the one collection from MGM, but the other volumes are from Fox, and this will be a Fox release, which means they will feature Warner Oland as the Asian sleuth. Incidentally, the latter Chan adventures, which feature Roland Winters and were produced by Monogram, are owned by Warner, but supposedly the quality of the films are in pretty bad shape at this time. "

Steve,
I'm confused - which is too often these days! - - -

". . . the fifth and final Chalrie Chan collection will be out sometime in the fall . . . [This is great news so we can complete our Fox Chans with the final Toler movies!] . . . which means they will feature Warner Oland as the Asian sleuth."

Am I just reading this wrong, as I suspect?

Virginia

No, you're reading correctly. The article writer must have had chop suey on the brain when he wrote that. Obviously, these will star the one and only Sidney Toler.

Great to see you back online!!

Steve

I'm glad to be back!!

Virginia

So this set will not have four movies, but seven!

1. Charlie Chan in Panama (1940)
2. Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (1940)
3. Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)
4. Murder Over New York (1940)
5. Dead Men Tell (1941)
6. Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)
7. Castle in the Desert (1942)

I thought that Fox might release another box set of four and then perhaps one with only three movies or three movies plus a disk of extras or some such.

The extras I want are:

The recovered trailer to 'Charlie Chan Carries On'
The full version of 'Pennsylvania Referendum'
Recreations of the other two missing Oland films.

Dear Douglas,

I, too, would like to see the "extras" that you mention on a future Fox Chan DVD release. One item you mention, the FULL version of the Pennsylvania Referendum of 1935 is avilable for viewing courtesy of TCM. We have linked to it at our "1935 Pennsylvania Referendum" section at this site. In fact, it is so complete, that you may also watch other performers of note speak on the same subject.

Sincerely,
Rush Glick

Rush:

Thanks for mentioning that. Yes, I've watched the entire film online at TCM, but it would also be nice to have it as a DVD extra, complete and intact.

Doug