1948 Directed by Anatole Litvak
Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.
Il terrore corre sul filo, Perdón, número equivocado
Brought to you by the Western Union Telegraph company.
"I'm a sick woman!" - Barbara Stanwyck.
What a mixed bag. On the one hand you've got a great cast.
"I'm a sick woman!" - Barbara Stanwyck.
But they spend most of the movie stationary and spouting exposition (mostly in flashback) while even the camera gets so bored it starts to look around rooms for lack of any action going on.
"I'm a sick woman!" - Barbara Stanwyck.
And then again, a few moments of photographic intrigue sneak their way past the mountain of extraneous details: silhouettes sneaking across a desolate beach at night heading for a dilapidated shack from which strange signals eminate. Secret packages are ferried away by motorboat…
No one has heard or been more privy to our deepest, darkest, most inner-shared secrets than the telephone. There’s something really quite terrifying about the idea that all our lives — the angered fights, the petty gossiping, the confessions of love, the meeting of the minds, the intimacy and togetherness of those who couldn’t be more disparate and disconnected —
Are all somehow united by these tangled, invisible wires that can bring us to anywhere and anyone. I just can’t help but get a little spooked at this unseen link between a million lives.
And even then, this can’t come close to how effectively this taut micro-thriller confronts my biggest, most crippling fear of them all: actually answering the damn thing when it calls.
Spoilers for the end of the film in the last paragraph.
Sorry, Wrong Number is equal parts baffling and intriguing. While it's immediately clear why it would be so riveting as a one-woman radio play, rooted entirely in Leona's voice and experiences, expanded to more than quadruple its original length, the film version necessarily flags by comparison. In addition, it's done a terrible disservice by having to actually put Leona (Barbara Stanwyck) and her husband Henry (Burt Lancaster) on screen together, something which immediately reveals the lack of logic behind their relationship and, in terms of this particular screen pairing, their staggering lack of chemistry.
Given how central the existence of the marriage between Leona and Henry is to the…
I can relate to be being a glamorous bitch who has panic attacks so bad sometimes it feels like you’re dying
That ending 😮💨
The June / July Classic Crime Project: 1930-1969
List idea - 'movies starring wendell corey where someone is confined to their apartment and suspects a murder'.
What's fascinating about Sorry, Wrong Number is that Barbara Stanwyck hasn't been laid up by a physical issue like LB Jeffries in Rear Window, but rather has been crippled by an increasing number of steadily worsening panic attacks.
They don't call them that specifically here, for some odd reason, but it was surprising that a film from this age seemed to approach the subject with a reasonable amount of sensitivity. It always helps when you have an actor of Stanwyck's quality through which to syphon the subject, of course, but no little credit should…
Not so much film noir as noir-adjacent. It starts off promisingly, with the shadows of Venetian blinds slanting across the walls, an invitation to intrigue, but quickly settles into more of a melodrama, centred around bed-ridden Leona Stevenson (Barbara Stanwyck) and her absent husband Henry (Burt Lancaster). Stevenson thought he'd lucked out catching the eye of a pharmaceutical tycoon's daughter but as time goes by, he becomes increasingly discontent with being a kept man and starts making moves of his own, unbeknown to his wife. Late one night, phoning his office to check up on his whereabouts, she's accidentally patched through to a conversation between two men and what sounds like a murder plot unfolding. Shaken by the call, she…
This movie is a hysterical mess and it’s kinda glorious for it. Barbara Stanwyck is a fabulous awful spoiled brat who has panic attacks when she doesn’t get her way. Because of this she spends all day in a frilly bed with massive costume jewelry rings and full makeup ordering Burt Lancaster around and treating him like shit until he arranges to have her killed. And you’re like... yeah. Kill her!
Ridiculous and fun. A little too ridiculous. I can’t imagine Hal Wallis realizes just how ridiculous it was though... he never had the sense of humor. Also, you know shit’s gonna go down when New Jersey and Staten Island team up to do some dirty crimes.
This is a movie where noir bleeds into horror. Anatole Litvak's direction is filled with noir tropes, a prowling camera, Freudian themes, grungy Staten Island locations, Hitchcock tricks, and the inevitable flashbacks of 1940s films. It’s interesting today as a visual celebration of obsolete technology and modes of communication.
A bed-bound Barbara Stanwyck has a heart or a mental condition so dire it prevents her from walking, but fortunately she’s able to smoke and scream hysterically into the phone. Her husband Burt Lancaster is hen-pecked, involved in some dodgy doings with Big Pharma, and seems to be patiently biding his time. Lancaster can be one of the great ciphers in Hollywood history. We’re as confused as Barbara is until it’s too late. The shocking ending is straight out of the suspense textbook, Chapter 3: Ticking Clock Technique.
