The Gaunt Stranger

Read more

A deranged killer calling himself "The Ringer" threatens to kill the crooked London lawyer who drove his sister to suicide. Arrogant attorney Morris Meister dismisses the chilling death threat against him, comforted by the knowledge that the real Ringer was reportedly drowned over a year ago. Or was he? Scotland Yard detectives are now considering the horrifying possibility that the dead man may be very much alive and stalking the city.

The Gaunt Stranger (aka The Phantom Strikes) was the third British screen adaptation of novelist Edgar Wallace's hit mystery "The Ringer" and the second cinematic attempt at the story by producer Michael Balcon and director Walter Forde (collaborators on the previous 1931 version). Boasting atmospheric camerawork by future director Ronald Neame (The Poseidon Adventure) and an intense script by Sidney Gilliat (the screenwriter for Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes and Jamaica Inn), The Gaunt Stranger is a classic of British suspense cinema.