Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 2 (Charlie Chan at the Circus / Charlie Chan at the Olympics / Charlie Chan at the Opera / Charlie Chan at the Race Track)

I am a big fan of the Charlie Chan series. I have Volumes 1 2 and 3 and have watched all the films and special features. All of these Warner Oland films are the best in the series. I encourage you to watch them and see that they are not racist, and show that Charlie was a detective in the true sense of the word in the Warner Oland films. The Sidney Tolar films were more played for laughs as Monogram went this route to change up the character. Enjoy!

When these films were put together, they were improved in the lab, and brought back to brand new quality. So they were better than I remembered them. Having watched them on an antenna TV on "The Million Dollar Movies" TV show.
Reliving my childhood, being scared by the bad guys who were always after Charlie. Spies, Fake Ghosts, gloomy nights in the rain and fog.
Let yourself go! Do as I am, and get all the Charlie Chan sets, pop some popcorn and watch two in a row. Gotta savor them. There will NEVER be another actor who can play Charlie Chan as Warner Oland could. Peter Ustinov came close, but the satirical nature of the screenplay ruined the journey.

This is a must for Charlie Chan fans! These are the best reproductions I have ever seen. I have copies of Chan films from several sources but these are definitely the best!

I bought this for my husband who loves the old Charlie Chan series. I ended up watching them myself. The restoration of these old black and white classics is amazing. Warner Oland was Charlie Chan. I went back and bought volume 1. I am hoping that there will be a volume 3 since Oland did 15 Charlie Chan movies before he died in 1938.

Both sets have been reviewed many times so I am making mine short and to the point. Vol. I and II are both thematic (I. deals with places--famous world cities) and II (the best) involves events. The best two entries are "At the Circus" that shows Chan for the first time with his large family of 12 (it grew to 14 later on in the series) and deals with the murder of the very unpopular circus owner. "CC At The Olympics" is an amazing piece of work. #1 son (the great Keye Luke) is a contender at the Nazi occupied Berlin Olympics. This premise on it's own (even with it's great subplot) makes this one of best in the Oland series.

None of the Chan Francishe films ran more than an hour (70 minutes top), so both sets containing 4 discs are quite expensive (although Fox is reputed to have spent $2,000,000 in restoration). To round out the set is the Sidney Toler WWII outings released by MGM--CHANTOLOGY (which is far to cautious due to the times--and the series had moved to B studio Monogram).

If you are a REAL fan, then all three pricey sets are worth the investment. I have tried to buy them used at a lesser price. BEWARE! Once you start watching the series (and unfortunately many of the finer outings have lost their copyright and only available on poorly made homemade bootleg DVD-Rs), you will get hooked on the most famous Oriental detective (based on a real life Honolulu detective) of all time, the amazing Charlie Chan.

A great series and the best of the genre.