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The Ringer (1931 film)

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The Ringer
Directed byWalter Forde
Written bySidney Gilliat
Angus MacPhail
Robert Stevenson
Based onThe Gaunt Stranger by Edgar Wallace
Produced byMichael Balcon
StarringPatric Curwen
Esmond Knight
John Longden
Carol Goodner
CinematographyAlex Bryce
Edited byIan Dalrymple
Production
companies
Distributed byIdeal Films
Release date
  • April 1931 (1931-04)
Running time
75 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Ringer is a 1931 British crime film directed by Walter Forde and starring Patric Curwen, Esmond Knight, John Longden and Carol Goodner. Scotland Yard detectives hunt for a dangerous criminal who has recently returned to England.[1] The film was based on the 1925 Edgar Wallace story The Gaunt Stranger, which is the basis for his play The Ringer.[2] Forde remade the same story in 1938 as The Gaunt Stranger. There was also a silent film of The Ringer in 1928, and a 1952 version starring Donald Wolfit.[3]

It was made at Beaconsfield Studios in Buckinghamshire by Gainsborough Pictures in a co-production with British Lion Films.[4] The film's sets were designed by the art director Norman G. Arnold. The author's son Bryan Edgar Wallace acted as a production manager.

Cast

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Critical reception

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The New York Times wrote, "at the Cameo is a picturization of the late Edgar Wallace's play The Ringer. This film, which hails from England, is the sort of melodrama that provides more amusement than excitement";[5] while in The BFI Companion to Crime, Phil Hardy wrote, "this is the best version of this oft-filmed play...Directed by Forde with a slickness and pace unusual in British films of the period, especially considering the film's stage origins...Hokum, but enjoyable."[6]

References

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  1. ^ "The Ringer". BFI. Archived from the original on 13 January 2009.
  2. ^ "Past Masters: EDGAR WALLACE".
  3. ^ "Network ON AIR > Edgar Wallace Presents: The Ringer". Archived from the original on 7 October 2015.
  4. ^ Wood p.73
  5. ^ Mordaunt Hall (2 June 1932). "Movie Review: Sari Maritza, a Continental Film Favorite, in Her First American Picture, a Drama of Soviet Russia". New York Times.
  6. ^ Attenborough, Richard (1997). The BFI Companion to Crime. ISBN 9780520215382.

Bibliography

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  • Wood, Linda. British Films, 1927–1939. British Film Institute, 1986.
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