Charlie Chan Carries On (film) 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 the title "Eran Trece"—"There Were Thirteen"—and this version survives. Charlie Chan tries to solve the murder of a wealthy
Charlie Chan be a positive role model, while others argue that Chan is an offensive stereotype. Critic John Soister argues that Charlie Chan is both; when Biggers created the character, he offered a unique alternative to stereotypical evil Chinamen, a man who was at the same time "sufficiently accommodating in personality... unthreatening in demeanor... and removed from his Asian homeland... to quell any underlying xenophobia." Critic Michael Brodhead argues that "Biggers's sympathetic treatment of the Charlie Chan novels convinces the reader that the author consciously and forthrightly spoke out for the Chinese – a people to be not only accepted but admired.