Excellent food for thought. I can tell you that from all that I have heard, Warner is, indeed, looking for the best print available for those films which lack a quality example at the moment. Personally, I remain hopeful and confident that they will track one down. If this fails, I would hope that they would release the films for which they DO have good prints, and then, perhaps include the rougher examples as extra material, at least.
One thing that we can all be thankful for, I feel, is that very soon now we will have authorized commercial copies of all, or at least nearly all, Charlie Chan movies that exist today.
I'll go with what Rush posted. . . . If they include the not so hot prints as extras with a notices about the quality, we still get all of them on DVD and nobody can complain.
At least anybody with sense who loves these old films!
I wouldn't suggest Warner wait too long after Vol 5 before releasing the Monograms else they will risk losing fan interest but given that they've had this set on their radar for about 3 or 4 years I wouldn't be surprised if they've already made some progress on finding the better prints.
You really have given something to think about and ponder about the Chan films. Warner might just go ahead and take the time to look for these 35mm films and do their best to digitally remaster them.
However I do believe they won't become lost films like the four that we will more than likely never see at all. Then again, there is still hope in seeing them. Time will be the one to tell us all.
