List Price: $69.96 Our Price: $55.97YOU SAVE $13.99!
Buy it
DVD The Charlie Chan Chanthology (The Secret Service / The Chinese Cat / The Jade Mask / Meeting at Midnight / The Scarlet Clue / The Shanghai Cobra)
Though the Charlie Chan film franchise has earned brickbats for its casting of Caucasian actors as the Asian sleuth, the movies have retained popularity among aficionados of '40s-era B-crime pictures, and the six-disc Charlie Chan Chanthology, all featuring Sidney Toler as Chan, should please that crowd. The Missouri-born Toler starred in 11 Chan pictures for Fox before purchasing the rights to the character from creator Earl Derr Biggers's widow and bringing it to budget studio Monogram, where he starred in 11 more Chans before his death in 1947 (Roland Winters replaced him in six more features until 1949). At Monogram, Chan became a Secret Service Agent (a move calculated to cut down on exotic locations and sets), and comedy was integrated into the plots via Mantan Moreland's chauffeur Birmingham Brown; Benson Fong also joined the cast as Number Three Son Tommy, with occasional appearances by daughter Frances (Frances Chan) and son Eddie (Edwin Luke, brother of Keye Luke, who played Number One Son Lee in the Fox Chans).
Other than that, the six films collected here (the first six Chans for Monogram, and all but five directed by Phil Rosen) are largely indistinguishable from one another save for the murder victims and their demises. In The Secret Service, Chan investigates the death of a wartime inventor; a San Francisco socialite expires in The Chinese Cat; daughter Frances is involved in the murder of a psychic in Meeting at Midnight (a.k.a. Black Magic); another government scientist is killed in The Jade Mask, and death by remote control is the focus of The Scarlet Clue. Director Phil Karlson (Kansas City Confidential) adds some noirish atmosphere to The Shanghai Cobra, which has bank employees dying from apparent snakebites. Dated and controversial as they may be, the Chan films are engaging diversions for vintage mystery fans. No extras are featured in the set. --Paul Gaita
Review(s): DVD The Charlie Chan Chanthology (The Secret Service / The Chinese Cat / The Jade Mask / Meeting at Midnight / The Scarlet Clue / The Shanghai Cobra)
Charlie Chan Chanthology
Was wonderful to veiw this package of mystery movies. I have been looking for a "group" such as these and you guys made a great selection. Don't find entertianment like this on old time cable.
Thanks for putting together a great selection
Please Make More Sets of Charlie Chan
For all of us old movie buffs, these are a treasure. They seem to have been blackballed, so to speak, a la "Fahrenheit 451", so the boxed DVD sets are a treat. We dearly hope that more sets of all these treasures are made.
love the Chanthology!
I've loved these movies for years. I'm extremely pleased with the Chanthology. I'd love to own all of Chan films starring Oland, Toler, and Winter(I even appreciated Ross Martin).
I have a place in my heart for all of the Charlie Chan movies. Please give us all of the Chan films on DVD! Charlie is greatly beloved. He and his fans deserve the best.
Give us more Chan!
Related DVD's The Charlie Chan Chanthology (The Secret Service / The Chinese Cat / The Jade Mask / Meeting at Midnight / The Scarlet Clue / The Shanghai Cobra)
Almost as welcome as a shaker full of martinis, The Complete Thin Man Collection represents an eagerly awaited DVD milestone for fans of the fizzy MGM movie series. The best film in the series came first: The Thin Man (1934), W.S. Van Dyke's marvelous adaptation of a Dashiell Hammet novel. The movie gods were in a generous mood when they paired William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, the upper-class sophisticates whose sleuthing escapades somehow joined the classic form of the whodunit with the giddyup of screwball comedy. Among the series' many attributes, one of its most radical notions was the idea that a married couple might find each other delightful and view life as a goofy adventure together.
It is common wisdom that the Thin Man sequels... More Info about this DVD Director(s): W.S. Van Dyke DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $59.98 Your Price: $44.99YOU SAVE $14.99!
Buy it
I couldn't understand how I'd never seen it before. I love Charlie Chan films, I love Peter Ustinov. I love silly all-star casts (Death on the Nile is one of my favorites.). How could I fail to love this film? Well, it was just awful. Ustinov is okay, though the voice he chooses for Chan is actually kind of annoying. The real problem isn't anybody's performance, it's the script. Chan's son is a bumbling idiot far surpassing any of the clownishness of the older films. He's also half Jewish and played by Richard Hatch who, diplomatically, is neither Asian nor Jewish. Let's not get into the white Ustinov playing Chan. It just shows how much had not changed in the years since the originals. It isn't funny, it isn't warm--as many of the older films were--it isn't clever. It is... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 07 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.99 Your Price: $14.99YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce star in this 1939 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's frequently filmed novel, and the result is one of the most atmospheric and purely enjoyable versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Except for minor changes, the script is true to Doyle's enthralling mystery about a centuries-long curse against heirs to the Baskerville estate, situated within the haunting and deadly Dartmoor in the southwest of England. With the arrival of a new master, Canadian Henry Baskerville (Richard Greene), Sherlock Holmes (Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Bruce) are called upon to solve the strange case of the "gigantic hound" that may be readying to savage the poor fellow. Wonderful sets, crisp performances, and Rathbone's accessible but no-nonsense take on the Great... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Basil Rathbone - Nigel Bruce Director(s): Sidney Lanfield DVD Release Date: Released the 27 April 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.98 Your Price: $15.98YOU SAVE $4!
Buy it
It doesn't get any better than Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The television series made with Jeremy Brett as Holmes was an okay stand-in at the time--I have all that on VHS and enjoy it for what it's worth--but for all the increased detail and effort to "get it right" of this latter-day video rendition of literary fiction's most venerable detective, the end result of Brett's collective performance simply doesn't carry the panache of Rathbone's earlier portrayals. Plus, there is no Rathbone-Bruce chemistry in play (have any two actors in the history of cinema ever been so closely, so indivisibly associated with each other by the public?). And, quite frankly, in spite of the ham-it-up license Rathbone and Bruce almost giddily exercised, not to mention the immediate, predictable and for my... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 21 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $224.98 Your Price: $224.98YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
I very much enjoyed this offering. Anyone who is familiar with this series of movies knows that the content is excellent, so I won't go into that.
As to the collection,it's excellent also. The audio and video qualities are top notch. The picture quality is actually better than the originals as seen on tv. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Basil Rathbone - Nigel Bruce Director(s): John Rawlins DVD Release Date: Released the 28 October 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $69.98 Your Price: $62.98YOU SAVE $7!
Buy it
