Charlie Chan Carries On (film) American found dead in a London hotel room. Settings include London, Nice, France, San Remo, Honolulu and Hong Kong. Charlie Chan Carries On (film) Charlie Chan Carries On is a 1931 American pre-Code mystery film directed by Hamilton MacFadden and starring Warner Oland, John Garrick and Marguerite Churchill. It is the very first appearance of Warner Oland as Charlie Chan. Part of the long-running Charlie Chan series, it was based on the 1930 novel of the same title by Earl Derr Biggers. It is now considered a lost film; however, Fox simultaneously filmed a Spanish-language version which was released under
Charlie Chan such as Fu Manchu, while simultaneously emphasizing supposedly Chinese characteristics such as impassivity and stoicism. Biggers wrote six novels in which Charlie Chan appears: The first Charlie Chan film was "The House Without a Key" (1926), a ten-chapter serial produced by Pathé Studios, starring George Kuwa, a Japanese actor, as Chan. A year later Universal Pictures followed with "The Chinese Parrot", starring Japanese actor, Kamiyama Sojin, in the starring role. In both productions, Charlie Chan's role was minimized. Contemporary reviews were unfavorable; in the words of one reviewer, speaking of "The Chinese Parrot", Sojin plays "the Chink sleuth as a