The Ringer (1931 film)

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. The film was based on the 1925 Edgar Wallace story The Gaunt Stranger, which is the basis for his play The Ringer. 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.

It was made at Beaconsfield Studios in Buckinghamshire by Gainsborough Pictures in a co-production with British Lion Films. 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

 * Patric Curwen as Dr. Lomond
 * Esmond Knight as John Lenley
 * John Longden as Inspector Wembury
 * Carol Goodner as Cora Ann Milton
 * Gordon Harker as Samuel Hackett
 * Franklin Dyall as Maurice Meister
 * Dorothy Bartlam as Mary Lenley
 * Henry Hallett as Inspector Bliss
 * Arthur Stratton as Sgt. Carter
 * Kathleen Joyce as Gwenda Milton
 * Eric Stanley as Commissioner

Critical reception
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"; 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."