Not copyright in the USA. U.S. release through Monogram Pictures, 15 November 1939, in a ridiculous cutdown entitled The Phantom Strikes. U.K. release through Associated British: 17 April 1939. Trade show: 27 October 1938. 73 minutes. (The Sinister Cinema DVD rates at least 9/10).
SYNOPSIS: Police are forced to guard a murderer whom a mysterious avenger known as "The Ringer", has threatened to strike down on a certain date.
NOTES: Number 47 in Jack Edmund Nolan's list of 152 movies through 1967 based on Edgar Wallace material, and the first in Nolan's opinion to do full justice to Wallace's original concept. Forde had originally filmed the 1926 stage play in 1931 with Gordon Harker as Sam Hackett and Franklyn Dyall as Maurice Meister. The only player present in both versions is John Longden, who played Inspector Wembury in '31.
COMMENT: If you love Edgar Wallace, you'll thrill to The Gaunt Stranger. This movie represents not only Wallace at his best, but British film-making at its finest. The cast is superb, with Sonnie Hale, normally a knockabout comedian, not putting a foot wrong as the opportunistic little spiv. He makes the most of his amusing lines and contrives to be both entertaining yet pitiable without overdoing either the humor or the sympathy. Not to be outshone, Wilfrid Lawson who normally plays slow-witted bumpkins turns in a chilling turn here as a killer without any redeeming features whatever - except maybe a love for good music. The girls are excellent too - Louise Henry (making her second last movie) and Patricia Roc (right at the start of her sensational career. This was her third film). I'm tired of reading books by actors and writers who spend half their pages denigrating Walter Forde. In my opinion, Forde was Britain's greatest director. The fact that actors and writers didn't like him is a point in his favor. A director's job is not to make writers and actors happy, but the audience happy - and this Forde certainly accomplished in his 55 films career as a director, stretching from 1919 to 1949.
SYNOPSIS: Police are forced to guard a murderer whom a mysterious avenger known as "The Ringer", has threatened to strike down on a certain date.
NOTES: Number 47 in Jack Edmund Nolan's list of 152 movies through 1967 based on Edgar Wallace material, and the first in Nolan's opinion to do full justice to Wallace's original concept. Forde had originally filmed the 1926 stage play in 1931 with Gordon Harker as Sam Hackett and Franklyn Dyall as Maurice Meister. The only player present in both versions is John Longden, who played Inspector Wembury in '31.
COMMENT: If you love Edgar Wallace, you'll thrill to The Gaunt Stranger. This movie represents not only Wallace at his best, but British film-making at its finest. The cast is superb, with Sonnie Hale, normally a knockabout comedian, not putting a foot wrong as the opportunistic little spiv. He makes the most of his amusing lines and contrives to be both entertaining yet pitiable without overdoing either the humor or the sympathy. Not to be outshone, Wilfrid Lawson who normally plays slow-witted bumpkins turns in a chilling turn here as a killer without any redeeming features whatever - except maybe a love for good music. The girls are excellent too - Louise Henry (making her second last movie) and Patricia Roc (right at the start of her sensational career. This was her third film). I'm tired of reading books by actors and writers who spend half their pages denigrating Walter Forde. In my opinion, Forde was Britain's greatest director. The fact that actors and writers didn't like him is a point in his favor. A director's job is not to make writers and actors happy, but the audience happy - and this Forde certainly accomplished in his 55 films career as a director, stretching from 1919 to 1949.
