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In 1925, Edgar Wallace wrote what was to become one of his most famous novels: "The Gaunt Stranger". He changed the title and the ending in 1926 and adapted it for the stage as "The Ringer", which is said to have been his biggest success, and it earned him the title of King of Crime. This German TV film is an adaptation of the stage play and, being one of the first German TV films ever, a historical document at the same time. Unfortunately, it is very talky and rather tedious. It seems to follow the play closely, which implies hardly any change of setting and a minimum of suspense, because the only murder we see is committed at the end of the play. So the audience has to wait almost two hours until the story finally becomes interesting for some minutes to be finished almost immediately thereafter. To offer an alternative, I recommend the version from 1964 starring Joachim Fuchsberger and Heinz Drache, which is a German film as well and held my interest from the first to the last scene. I'm sure Edgar Wallace would have liked that one, too.

I certainly would not have watched this film if I had not known the original, the ingenious "12 Angry Men", directed by Sidney Lumet. This German TV film was made only six years later and it is almost as great as the original, mostly because of the wonderful cast, minor changes in the script and because it focuses on one setting only: the room of the jury. This creates a claustrophobic atmosphere, which is needed to understand the tension between all the characters. As far as the cast is concerned, I liked Siegfried Lowitz, Mario Adorf and Ralf Wolter in particular, but the other actors gave convincing performances as well. By the way, there is another TV remake from 1997 starring Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott, which is not only in colour but in my opinion even more compelling than Sidney Lumet's film. But since the other ones are exciting, too, make sure you watch one of them.

This German TV film was supposed to revive and continue the 1960s classic series of films based on novels by Edgar Wallace. Sadly enough, it fails miserably. The story is rather confusing, the final twist doesn't make any sense and – worst of all – the actors are unconvincing apart from some older cast members such as Pinkas Braun and Gisela Uhlen, who already starred in a number of Wallace films in the 1960s. Although the film was a flop on TV, some six or seven Wallace adaptations followed (all of very poor quality) until 2002. Obviously, it took the producers that long to accept that these films cannot hold a candle to the classic series.