The Stranger Left No Card

The Stranger Left No Card (1952) is a British short film directed by Wendy Toye.

Alan Badel plays the stranger, who arrives in a small town, costumed as a flamboyant itinerant magician with a folding bag of tricks. After a week in town, where the outrageous behaviour of Napoleon soon gives him a reputation for harmless, flamboyant buffonery, he visits a businessman. The businessman is known to keep regular hours and the stranger bedevils him with irritating magic tricks. The last of these tricks leaves the man handcuffed in his office.

Slowly, speaking all the while, Napoleons monologue grows slower and sadder. It turns out hes been in costume for a week to confuse witnesses: he removes the lifts from his shoes, to reveal his actual short height, false beard, eyebrows and wig, to show his face. The businessman framed this man 15 years ago, for a crime he didnt commit. The magician then stabs the crooked businessman through the heart, and leaves unnoticed.

Incidental music was provided by Doreen Carwithen, though the soundtrack is most remembered for the incessant repetition of Hugo Alfvens Swedish Rhapsody No. 1 (1903).

The story, by Sidney Carroll, was later remade as Stranger In Town â€” an episode of the television series Tales of the Unexpected (also directed by Toye) â€” starring Derek Jacobi and Clive Swift.

"Here Today ... " in Black Cat Mystery #50, June 1954, is an uncredited comic book adaptation with art by Sid Check and Frank Frazetta.

A strangely-garbed and eccentric-acting stranger arrives in a small English town. But, after several days on being in the town, the citizens accept him as a harmless, though a bit daft, member of the community. He then pays a visit to the town's leading citizen and reveals himself as a man with the perfect plan for murder.