User reviews

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

You can tell this thriller was once a radio play--it is mostly talk, and often over the telephone. But what drama can be built on a string of conversations around the office, in cars in the rain, out on a lonely beach on Staten Island, and on the telephone, often filled with mystery and doom.\

Not that it's not a visual movie, either. There is a big gloomy house, and lots of dark city streets. Shadows and moving camera and close-ups of faces and telephones, all keep you glued and increasingly worried. By the end, the really jarring, memorable end, you are ready for what you can never be ready for.

Beware, the plot is confusing. Even seeing it twice I had to pay attention to who was who, and what turn of events had just taken place. Part of the reason is there is a bewildering use of flashbacks, even flashbacks within flashbacks, told by all kinds of different characters. The plot is laid out methodically, but take notes as you go, or at least take note. The initial overheard phone call is key to it all, and it gets reinforced later somewhat, but pay heed there.

And the person on the phone? A sharp, bitter, convincing Barbara Stanwyck, who really knows how to be steely and vulnerable at the same time. Burt Lancaster is more solid and stolid, and maybe less persuasive overall, but he carries a more practical part of the story. It keeps coming back to Stanwyck in bed, and the telephone which is her contact with the facts, as they swirl and finally descend.

Director Anatole Litvak has some less known but thrilling dark dramas to look for, including Snake Pit. But this is his most sensational winner, partly for Stanwyck, and partly for the last five minutes, which is as good as drama gets.

Barbara Stanwyck (as Leona Stevenson) is a neurotic woman, confined to her bed. She is married to the very attractive, and mysterious, young Burt Lancaster (as Henry Stevenson). Ms. Stanwyck relies on a state-of-the-art 1940s corded telephone to help communicate her needs. One evening, she picks up her phone and overhears two men plotting a murder; eventually, the crime moves too close to Stanwyck for comfort…

Stanwyck is excellent as the spoiled, arrogant, and wealthy, but, ultimately, helpless heroine of Lucille Fletcher's adapted radio play (the part was originated on radio by Agnes Moorehead). The story picks up some flaws in its extension into a feature film; it is most frustrating as (flashbacks) ((within flashbacks)) (((within flashbacks))) occur; and, the story becomes a little confusing. Still, Stanwyck's fine performance carries the film to an exciting, tense, conclusion.

******** Sorry, Wrong Number (9/1/48) Anatole Litvak ~ Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey

Heck of a thriller, though the narrative is difficult to piece together at times. Stanwyck gets to run through a gamut of hysterical emotions as the intended victim. Her Leona is not particularly likable as the rich man's daughter who gets her way by bullying people around her. So there's some rough justice in her predicament—alone, disabled and dependent on the phone while a killer seemingly stalks her. Even the independent working-man, a studly Henry (Lancaster), is bullied into taking up with her. Of course, it doesn't hurt that she's got scads of money to assist her schemes. Incidentally, catch how Henry's several capitulations to others (Leona, Morano) are marked by allowing them to light his cigarette. Nice touch.

The idea of only gradually revealing why Leona is being set up for murder is a good one. It adds to the suspense—not just a 'when' but also a 'why'. The trouble is the disclosure is only revealed in pieces over the phone using flashbacks, and these are hard to piece together over a stretch of time. But enough comes through that we get the idea. There's some great noir photography from Sol Polito that really adds to the tense atmosphere. Anyhow, it's a great premise that also played well over the radio that I recall as a kid. It's also a subtle irony that one could end up being so alone in the middle of a great city. Poor Leona, maybe if she had been a little nicer and less bossy over the phone, she might have made the human connection she needed.

An expanded radio play and subsequent TV drama, this film builds terrific tension around a bedridden heiress and her telephone.

Sympathy builds for this unlikeable woman, Leona, played by Barbara Stanwyck. She is a spoiled heiress used to getting her own way, but as we come to see, very much created by her father (played by Ed Begley) who bows to all her wishes.

Her husband, Henry, played by Burt Lancaster, whom she chases and captures from her best friend, initially goes along with being an employee in her father's corporation but eventually starts chafing at the restraints imposed on him.

The movie just about plays in real time with the addition of many flashbacks, one of which secures the knowledge that there is nothing wrong with Leona, it is all psychosomatic based on her mother's fatal illness.

From the moment Leona accidentally overhears a plotted murder for later on that evening, the viewer is taken on a ride that builds suspense and tension to a terrifying conclusion and the movie's title.

Not to be missed. The cinematography is superb, a lot of play in light and shade. Barbara deserved an Oscar but lost. 8 out of 10.

It's stylish, no doubt, and the ending is a remarkably shocking nail biter for its time, but "Sorry, Wrong Number" seems like an awfully overwrought affair now. Barbara Stanwyck acts up a storm as a bed-ridden woman who inadvertently hears plans for a murder over her phone and spends the rest of the film trying to get help. It's like a melodramatic, women's picture version of "When a Stranger Calls." The film is fleshed out with a lot of back story that feels more like padding than anything else, but I guess they had to fill out the run time with something, since the basic story could have been told in 15 minutes. Stanwyck handles the film like a pro. Even when she's overacting (which is often) she keeps you thoroughly interested in this rather silly affair. She would win her last Best Actress Academy Award nomination for this film, forcing the Academy to toss her a consolation honorary award over thirty years later, one more shameful oversight in the Academy's long and unmatched history of shameful oversights.

True noir lovers take note---this is not really a film noir, not in the strictest sense of that overused phrase. But it's an entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.

Grade: B-

In New York, the spoiled Leona Stevenson (Barbara Stanswick) is the invalid wife of the VP of a pharmaceutical industry Henry J. Stevenson (Burt Lancaster)and becomes aware of a murder that would be committed late night of that day through a "cross-wire", when she overhears two men planning the murder.

Leona tries to find the right number to tell the police and she discovers that her former friend and ex-girlfriend of Henry, Sally Hunt Lord (Ann Richards), had lunch with him. She recalls the first encounter with her husband and parts of her life with him through flashbacks. Along the night, she learns dirty secrets about Henry and she finds that she might be the intended victim.

"Sorry, Wrong Number" is a great film-noir with a suspenseful story and top-notch performances. The screenplay and the direction are excellent and keep the attention of the viewer until the end of the last scene. This movie deserves to be watched more than once and is highly indicated for fans of film noir. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "A Vida Por Um Fio - O Clássico" ("The Life for One Line - The Classic")

Note: On 29 September 2013, I saw this movie again.

A woman confined to a bed overhears a murder plot on a crossed telephone line and tries to alert the police. The plot structure is quite convoluted, with most of the story told in flashbacks. In fact there are flashbacks within flashbacks, making it somewhat hard to follow. The audience is supposed to feel sympathy for Stanwyck, but the character is too self-centered and whiny for that to happen. Given her character's propensity for histrionics, the actress manages to keep her performance somewhat controlled; Lancaster is fine as her trophy husband. Litvak creates a good film noir atmosphere, although at times his camera roams aimlessly, becoming a distraction.

Anatole Litvak directs the movie version of Lucille Fletcher's radio war-horse Sorry, Wrong Number was gusto and drive. The photograpy is deceptively simple at first blush, but soon evolves, giving each scene an individuality and clarity not unlike deep-focus. There's an overall feeling of gloom in this largely nocturnal movie, which is stylistically a sort of vest-pocket film noir Citizen Kane. Some of the touches border on the surreal, such as Lancaster's (among others) repeated references to his home town of Grassville, which happened at least thirty-six times and grows alternately funnier and more disturbing with each passing mention. The feel of New York in summer has seldom been so well captured in a studio-bound film, as scene upon scene appears to be enveloped in fog or cigarette smoke, and the horns of boats moving down-river or out to sea are often audible, at times suggesting, not wholly inapprpriately, the world of Eugene O'Neill and his theme of universal frustration. For all this, there is little actual movement in the film, which reflects the heroine's bed-ridden state, as scenes are acted out semi-theatrically, with characters talking to one another continuously, and whether wicked or benign seldom communicating clearly, as each little chat leaves someone more in the dark than before. The story moves, one might say, from one misinterpretation to another, until the climax, when all becomes clear, as tragedy trumps melodrama, giving the viewer a much needed jolt of reality.

I never knew about the 1943 radio play, "Sorry, Wrong Number", written by Lucille Fletcher and starring Agnes Moorehead, until last year when I finally heard it. The play certainly caught my attention, just like it obviously did to many people who heard it when it was first broadcast, decades before I was born. Several years after its original broadcast, it was adapted to this film-noir by Fletcher herself, starring Barbara Stanwyck. After hearing the radio play for the first time last year, I was already interested in seeing this movie. This month, I heard the play for the second time and then finally got around to watching this 1948 adaptation. Was it as good as I could have possibly hoped for? Definitely not, but I thought most of it was at least reasonably well done.

Leona Stevenson is a wealthy heiress who is bedridden due to a severe illness. One night, she is all alone in her New York home. Her husband, Henry, promised he would be home hours ago, but for some mysterious reason, he still isn't back! With nobody else around and Leona hardly able to walk, the only way she can contact anyone is through the telephone beside her bed. She tries to call Henry, but does not succeed. Instead, the phone lines cross, and she hears a conversation between two thugs who are planning the murder of a woman, which is intended to happen at 11:15 that night! Obviously shocked at what she has just heard, Leona is determined to foil this evil plan she now knows about, and begins to call different people on the phone. During the series of phone calls, starting unsuccessfully with the operator and the police, she gradually learns a lot, as we learn more about the character, her husband, and other people she knows!

This version of "Sorry, Wrong Number" is mostly steady around the beginning, with the lead character in bed on the phone soon hearing the sinister conversation. Unfortunately, it doesn't stay consistent. In order to make a full-length movie out of the story, it obviously had to be extended, and one of the ways they extended it here was by adding a series of flashbacks. Not all of these work so well, including the tedious one early in the film showing how Leona's relationship with Henry began. This part really shows how unlikable our lead character is! However, while the film drags in a number of spots, there is a decent amount of suspense for much of the time, sometimes with an intense and haunting atmosphere, and most of the flashbacks do work. There's also great cinematography, with some nice shots of New York City, sometimes through Leona's window, and mostly good acting, with a decent if slightly flawed performance from Barbara Stanwyck, and other notable performances such as Burt Lancaster as Henry Stevenson. So, while this 1948 film-noir is no masterpiece, and is inferior to the radio play which it's based on, fans of suspense might want to give it a try.

This somewhat "better-than-average", 1948, Hollywood Thriller was originally a 30-minute radio play written in 1943 by Lucille Fletcher.

So, with that in mind, you can just imagine how much extra padding this film's story required in order to turn it into a 90-minute vehicle for the likes of Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster.

Featuring some excellent b&w camera-work, "Sorry, Wrong Number" certainly contains enough suspense and tension-filled moments to allow the viewer to forgive its decidedly convoluted storyline that (once again) gets itself bogged down with way too much "flashback" nonsense.

Well, if nothing else - Being a vintage, Hollywood production, "Sorry, Wrong Number" does, at least, rise above your typical "screwball" comedy which seemed to prevail during that particular era in movie-making history.

Alfred Hitchcock himself praised this movie that was for him one of Barbara Stanwyck's most extraordinary parts.Besides,he did include Lucille Fletcher's short novel in his anthology "stories not for the nervous"(sic)

The story of this woman in her bed,who has heard on the phone someone is in danger,and who little by little discovers the horrible truth,is a first-class screen play which requires the viewer's attention,,or else he may lose the vital lead.The first people who enjoyed it had no pictures,since it was originally a radio broadcast,so they had to show a lot of imagination.The movie remains talky but the numerous flashbacks give it substance.The phone,is along with Stanwyck ,the star of Litvak's work;Burt Lancaster,a great actor though,only serves as a foil to both of them.50% of the dialogue consists of phone calls,that's what makes this thriller unique.

A strong connection with Hitchcock's work is the father's part(Ed Bigley).He is some equivalent of the Mother in many movies of his.The stuffed animals in his desirable mansion are a symbol of his daughter's lifelessness.(Coincidence?There will be such hunting trophies (and more) in his "psycho" twelve years later,and the topic is present in "the man who knew too much"(2nd version))

If you are fond of suspense,this is an unqualified must!

Barbara Stanwyck as a bedridden,neurotic woman who due to crossed telephone lines accidentally overhears a murder plot. As this tense thriller moves along she comes to know that it is her the murders are after.Panic arises......

This is a one-actor piece and Stanwyck carries the assignment brilliantly.As the selfish,neurotic Leona Stevenson she lets us see all of the characters frailties and her mounting fright as she becomes aware that she's to be a murder victim.Burt Lancaster has limited screentime as the husband,but he makes the most of it. A suspense film almost of the Hitchcock calibre.

As a child I was riveted by the classic radio play starring Agnes Moorehead, and here playwright Lucille Fletcher gets her chance to expand the relentless tale of what happens to wealthy. spoiled Leona Stevenson one lonely night in the heart of New York City. Harold Vermilyea is Evans, the devoted employee destroyed by her wastrel husband's greed, and Ann Richards is Sally, Leona's loyal (though we wonder why) ex-classmate. These two are the only likeable characters in SWN. Still, as the minutes tick by toward the horrific conclusion, life in the unconcerned city goes on ... roaring subways, loud conversations, and traffic sounds, all accentuating the mounting apprehensions and, eventually, our realization of the immense evil that has found Leona Stevenson.

Chrome-plated hokum, Sorry, Wrong Number works despite itself. And works and works. Starting out as a radio drama by Lucille Fletcher in the 1940s, it boasted umpteen performances plus a 1946 production in the nascent medium of television before Anatole Litvak turned it into film noir. During most of its earlier incarnations, Agnes Moorehead created the role of the hysterical, bedridden heiress, the `cough drop queen,' but the film fell into the lap of the First Lady of Film Noir, Barbara Stanwyck. Moorehead was more than a strong enough actress, but Hollywood required a star.

The Irony is that Sorry, Wrong Number is far from her finest hour on screen. Rarely has one been made so aware of Stanwyck `acting' in the most unabashedly actressy way. And the same can be said of Burt Lancaster who, when a role didn't set well with him, communicated his discomfort blatantly. In The Rose Tattoo, against Anna Magnani, he was ingratiating and unconvincing ; here, he's almost as awkward as the henpecked husband in whom the worm has at long last turned.

But maybe Fletcher's slice of devil's food cake calls for mannered histrionics. Ensconced in her bedchamber one sweltering Manhattan evening, her pill bottles and her telephone at her elbow, Stanwyck eavesdrops on a sinister conversation – a murder is being plotted – thanks to a crossed line. This makes her even more restive, and she starts working the phone, tracking down her tardy husband. Litvak `ventilates' these calls, turning them into a series of flashbacks filling in the background to what will prove a very bad evening for Stanwyck. (The sequences on Staten Island, however, could have sprung from the pen of Franklin W. Dixon, the Hardy Boys' puppeteer.)

Unavoidably talky, owing to its source, Sorry, Wrong Number moves inexorably to its preordained end. Basically, it's a gimmick, and one that Hitchcock might have fine-tuned into a nifty infernal machine. Litvak doesn't do badly, though, and the movie's shock value outlasts its staled conventions. Its most chilling moment comes when Stanwyck frantically dials a number that she thinks will give her solace. But her answer is `BOwery 2-1000 – the City Morgue.'

"Sorry, Wrong Number" is one radio play that should not have been adapted to the screen, unless it were a short 10 minute filler.

Part of the appeal of the radio play is the fact that we never really figure out what the killer's motives are. The film adaptation seems content with endlessly showing flashbacks within flashbacks to tell us everything that should have been left to the imagination. This results in the destruction of any suspense that has been built up. In fact, the only interesting moments of "Sorry, Wrong Number" are the scenes that were actually in the radio play.

The ending may be a bit of a shock for those who haven't read the radio play, and the last line of the film is certainly classic. If you haven't read the play, you may want to give "Sorry, Wrong Number" a watch. If you have read it, don't bother with the adaptation.

Bedridden New York cough-drop heiress Leona Stevenson (Barbara Stanwyck) calls her husband Henry (Burt Lancaster)'s office. The lines get crossed. She listens to a mystery man confirming with George on a plan to murder a woman that night at 11:15. In flashbacks, Leona stole Henry from sweet Sally Hunt. They get married despite her successful drugstore chain owner father's objection. Sally Hunt is now married to a lawyer from the D.A. office. She tells Leona about her husband's mysterious investigation and possible connection to Henry.

This is classic noir. Barbara Stanwyck is terrific in her posh room. I would be perfectly happy with less flashbacks and more of her in that room. The shadows and darkness outside give a claustrophobic sense of the situation. I'm not sure why Sally Hunt is trying to help Leona who was so cruel to her. Again, I would like less explanations except for that great Staten Island location. This has a lot of similarities with my favorite psychological thriller of all times Rear Window. Great noir!

For her fourth and final Oscar nomination for Best Actress, Barbara Stanwyck starred in an expanded version of the Lucille Fletcher radio play Sorry Wrong Number. The original drama was only thirty minutes and it only concentrates on a crippled woman and her terror. We certainly get that in this film and it's when we do that Stanwyck went into Oscar contention.

Besides the moments of present terror, the story is fleshed in a series of flashbacks, sometimes flashbacks within flashbacks, although not approaching Passage to Marseilles which set some kind of record in that department. The people that Fletcher creates aren't the most sympathetic group of people you'd ever want to meet. Stanwyck is the spoiled only child of pharmaceutical millionaire Ed Begley and we her put on a full court campaign to sweep poor kid Burt Lancaster off his feet and away from Ann Richards. We see Lancaster trapped in a velvet cocoon of luxury, but not really being his own man. He's as kept as William Holden was in Sunset Boulevard.

As the story unfolds it actually becomes Lancaster's struggle to claw out of captivity. Stanwyck does not become the most sympathetic figure either as she wields her illness as a weapon as surely as Eleanor Parker did in The Man With The Golden Arm. Imagine Bill Holden's character in Sunset Boulevard married to Parker's from the Otto Preminger classic and you've got a really sick marriage.

The flashback story is a bit much to take, but when it comes to Stanwyck's present terror the film goes into high gear. Think of the extraordinary range of roles that Barbara Stanwyck was nominated for an Oscar. The white trash mother in Stella Dallas, the mob moll in Ball Of Fire, the evil wife in Double Indemnity and finally this psychosomatic clinging cripple in Sorry Wrong Number. All completely different from the others, yet all stamped with Stanwyck's indelible screen persona.

According to the Axel Madsen biography of Stanwyck she was not entertaining hopes of winning in 1948 in what proved to be her last shot at a competitive Oscar. She picked out exactly who was going to win that year and her other competition was Ingrid Bergman in Joan Of Arc, Olivia DeHavilland in The Snake Pit, and Irene Dunne in I Remember Mama. The winner in who Stanwyck said was the Best Performance for an Actress in 1948 was Jane Wyman for Johnny Belinda.

When Sorry Wrong Number concentrates on Barbara it's one of the best fright tales around. Would that the rest of the film was as good as her performance.

"Sorry Wrong Number" packs the wallop of a creepy urban legend told around a campfire. It's cheesy and contrived and yet it gives you goosebumps and makes you scream and inspires nightmares.

It's a classic film study of claustrophobia, paranoia, and powerlessness.

Leona Stevenson (Barbara Stanwyck)is a bed-ridden rich woman alone in her Manhattan townhouse at night. She overhears a plot to commit murder ... and concludes that she is the intended victim.

The real star here is the old fashioned telephone, the kind we had before cell phones. It's attached to a stable spot in the wall; if you want to talk, you go to it; it doesn't go with you.

You stick your finger in and dial it. Busy signals sound very, very creepy. If you make a long distance call, you have to go through an operator, who is saddled with an ungainly apparatus and must stick plugs into a dystopic board of wires and holes.

And, by accident, your wires could get crossed, and you could find yourself conversing with someone who may be planning to kill you . . .and that someone could be downstairs in your very house.

Or, you could be suffering from an overactive imagination . . .

For the next ninety minutes, Leona, never leaving her bedroom, dressed in a fabulous lace negligee, makes contact with characters from her past and present. Flashbacks and voice-over narration of a motley crew of film noir-esquire usual suspects slowly put the puzzle pieces together.

There's Sally Lord (Anne Richards), as a too-good-to-be-true, vaguely accented blonde whom Leona had double crossed in her past. Sally seems to be trying to do something nice ... or is she just out for payback? There's Doctor Alexander (Wendell Corey), who tells Leona something she very much does not want to hear.

And then, in perhaps the film's creepiest, and most memorable performance, there is Waldo Evans (Harold Vermilyea), a mild mannered scientist who leaves a very, very odd message ... and a number for Leona to call that leaves her shaking in horror.

Leona writhes in her bed. Her town house closes in on her. She trembles ... she's an invalid ... she's alone ... shadows menace.

The climax is a real nail biter. Creepy. Distubring. But in a good way.

A real star here is the crisp, deep focus, black and white cinematography. It's as if you entered a time machine and traveled back to New York, 1948. Check out that vintage radio on Leona's night stand, the sand and surf on Staten Island, the neon signs. Film noir heaven looks something like this.

This kept my interest in the early going but almost lost me as it turns into too much of a soap opera instead of a film noir, in which it is classified.

There are some good touches film noir cinematography here and there which I enjoyed. Barbara Stanwyck, whom I usually like to watch, was nothing but a whining hypochondriac and not somebody you root for because of her constant demanding of everything. Yet, I somehow found her character at least bearable.

I did like the ending and I thought it made the film more memorable and credible.