The Gaunt Stranger

The Gaunt Stranger
British poster for The Gaunt Stranger
Directed by	Walter Forde
Produced by	Michael Balcon
Screenplay by	Sidney Gilliat
Based on	The Ringer by Edgar Wallace
Starring	Sonnie Hale Wilfrid Lawson Louise Henry Alexander Knox
Music by	Ernest Irving
Cinematography	Ronald Neame
Edited by	Charles Saunders
Production company	Ealing Studios
Distributed by	ABFD (UK)
Release date	10 January 1939 (1939-01-10) (UK )
Running time	74 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Gaunt Stranger (released as The Phantom Strikes in the US) is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Walter Forde and starring Sonnie Hale, Wilfrid Lawson and Alexander Knox.

A notorious killer, long believed to have died in Australia, returns to England seeking revenge for the death of his sister. The "Ringer" threatens to murder the criminal mastermind Maurice Meister. Detective Inspector Alan Wembury is assigned to the case and despite his strong dislike for Meister attempts to protect him with the reluctant assistance of another criminal, Sam Hackett, who has been released from prison as he is the only man able to identify the "Ringer". Even with his help Wembury struggles to unmask their target before the time at which Meister is due to be killed.

The film was made by and at Ealing Studios, and was the company's first release after Michael Balcon's appointment as head of production. It was based on the 1925 novel The Gaunt Stranger by Edgar Wallace, which had been renamed The Ringer in 1926, and which Forde had previously adapted as The Ringer in 1931. So the 1939 film used the original novel title, although the opening credits state that it is based on Wallace's novel The Ringer. The film was screened by the censors on 4 October 1938, but didn't premier until 10 January 1939, when it opened at Gaumont Haymarket as second film in a double bill with The Cowboy and the Lady. It was, however, popular enough in Britain to be re-released in 1945.