Sorry, Wrong Number
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Movie Reviews of Sorry, Wrong Number
Movie Review: Solid, but the radio play is better
Summary: 4 Stars
Speaking as a fan of Lucille Fletcher's "Sorry, Wrong Number," the famous radio play, this version, adapted by Fletcher herself is surprisingly good -- especially given that the story has been fleshed out threefold. For the uninitiated, Mrs. Henry Stevenson is an invalid who is confined to her bed. Her husband, who was supposed to be home hours ago, has yet to show. In trying to get him on the telephone (this was the age when operators still did all the work for you), she is crossed into another conversation between two men who are planning to kill a woman at 11:15 that night. Having a heart condition, this upsets Mrs. Stevenson ("Leona" in the film; radio did not give her a first name) and she tries several things to notify authorities.
Due to her highstrung manner and short temper, she doesn't get much anywhere and the night passes on as she spends all her time on the telephone. All the time, 11:15 is getting closer...
Barbara Stanwyck was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Sorry, Wrong Number (the radio play also made a star of Agnes Moorehead), and it certainly is a tour de force with her in practically every scene. Lucille Fletcher's expansion of her storyline is superb, with more and more details given as pieces of the puzzle unfold with each new telephone conversation, told through flashbacks (and flashbacks within flashbacks). In fact, my only problem with the script is that it makes the husband sympathetic (probably because he is played by Burt Lancaster), whereas we had no inkling of the motives of the husband in the radio version (other than that his wife is a shrill shrew, of course).
Comic relief is also added (particularly in the police station) to little effect and the whole enterprise is simply missing something. Although I can't think of one specific thing that is wrong, the whole film just doesn't gel somehow. It's a good watch, I assure you, but I can only conjecture as to how it has attained its "classic" status. I think it must lie in the fact that it stars Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster and that Stanwyck gives a complex bravura performance.
But despite all this, I can't imagine ever wanting to see Sorry, Wrong Number again. The similarities to the radio show are there, and it's faithful, but the rest -- even with all the intrigue about gangsters and stolen money -- just seems like so much filler. I'll stick with radio.
Movie Review: don't pick up that receiver...
Summary: 4 Stars
My fellow reviewer M. Dalton perfectly sums up SORRY, WRONG NUMBER by calling it a "nightmare noir". This darkly tense and truly disturbing movie stars Barbara Stanwyck (who could always be trusted to deliver the goods), in a top performance.
Filthy-rich invalid Leona Stevenson (Barbara Stanwyck) picks up the phone during a sultry New York summer night, and overhears a plot to murder her. Could it be her husband Henry (Burt Lancaster), convieniently "out of town"; or someone out to settle the score with her former best friend Sally (Ann Richards)? As the night unfolds, a series of phonecalls guides Leona into a web of murder, drug theft and extortion. Who can she trust...and how will the bed-ridden Leona defend herself from a mysterious assailant?
Barbara Stanwyck delivers a perfectly-pitched performance, as the movie unfolds and the character of Leona grows more desperate and panicked, the sheer artistry and talent of Stanwyck comes bubbling to the surface. Burt Lancaster is also fine as the husband who may or may not be part of the plot to murder his wife. Australian-born character actress Ann Richards (not to be confused with the brunette American jazz singer), is a delight to watch as the jilted girlfriend who might also have an axe to grind with Leona.
Based around the popular radio play by Lucille Fletcher (which launched the career of Agnes Moorehead), SORRY, WRONG NUMBER benefits greatly from the added visuals of the motion picture. We can observe the way Leona visibly changes and crumbles during the course of events, and thanks to some well-shot flashback scenes, Ms Stanwyck can leave the bed and play Leona during her courting days with the Burt Lancaster character.
Clipping along at a brisk pace, SORRY, WRONG NUMBER will be a must-see for classic noir fans as well as admirers of Barbara Stanwyck. This is a tour-de-force from the amazing star of "Stella Dallas" and "Double Indemnity".
The DVD also features the trailer. (Single-sided, single-layer disc).
Movie Review: "Sorry, Wrong Number"
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been listening to old radio shows on tape for quite a while, when I heard of a very popular one. It was entitled "Sorry, Wrong Number". Unfortuanetly I couldn't find the tape anywhere, so I did the next best thing. I bought the DVD. I was most certinly not dissapointed. The film's plot is about a woman(Barbara Stanwyck)who is an invalid and is bedridden in her apartment. One night this woman's husband(Burt Lancaster)is working unusualy late at his office. When this woman repeatedly gets a busy signal when trying to phone her husband, she decides to have the operater try the number. That was her huge mistake! Why? Because when the operater trys getting the number she accidently gets her wires crossed and gives this woman the wrong number. However, when the woman starts listening to the conversation on the other line, she finds that the two people on the phone are talking about a murder that they're going to commit! I won't say anymore about the film, for if I said even the littlist detail, it might ruin the ending. So, why did I give this masterpiece only 4 stars? Well, for one I was most unimpressed by the films constant flashbacks. These flashbacks did get annoying after a while and quite boring. In fact the only real exciting part is the last sequence. And the second reason I gave it 4 stars, is that the movie added so many other plot elements that were never in the radio show(which I eventually found and bought). If you watch the movie and then listen to the tape, then you'll know what I mean. However, I wasn't very impressed with the DVD. It had one theatrical trailer and wasn't even widescreen. What's up with that? But, then again this film was made in 1948, so I should be happy that they found, even sometihng so little as a trailer. All in all though, it was quite entertaing and I would recommend it to a friend. However, I wouldn't suqqest anyone watching this movie if they can't stand flashback sequences.Movie Review: When a stranger calls
Summary: 4 Stars
Barbara Stanwyck was such a terrific actress that even though she is insanely miscast in this 1948 Anatole Litvak film as Leona, the wealthy invalid heiress who accidentally overhears a murder being plotted over the phone, she is still incredibly affecting and powerful. Agnes Moorehead has a terrific success in the original Lucille Fletcher radio play of the same name and was asked to reprise it six more times during her career, but the studio heads at Paramount chose to cast Stanwyck instead, whose Brooklyn accent seems exactly wrong for the wealthy Chicago-bred Leona and who seems extremely unconvincing in the scenes Fletcher added to her own radio play where Leona's supposed to be a college student (Stanwyck was forty when the film was made). To make Stanwyck's casting seem even more confusing, the producers chose Ed Begley, only six years Stanwyck's senior, as her adoring father the pharmaceutical king, and Burt Lancaster, six years Stanwyck's junior (but looking much younger with a long shock of light hair), as her morally corrupt husband. But once you get over this, Stanwyck makes the whole thing work just through her sheer nerve: when she begins to realize the woman the killers have been hired to get is actually herself, she becomes incredibly affecting and makes the work's famous finale unbearably suspenseful. Fletcher's attempts to "open up" the radio play have been hugely criticized for making the whole work too convoluted, but the director, Anatole Litvak, seems most animated by the beautiful haunting desolate beach scenes the expansion allows him to film which are supposedly set in Staten Island. With William Conrad as a mobster and Ann Richards as Leona's college roommate from Lancaster's character's Podunk hometown, each speaking in tones far too plummy and with diction far too excruciatingly correct to be very believable.Movie Review: Suspenseful and memorable little Thriller with Noir flourishes.
Summary: 4 Stars
Basically a Hitchcock imitation, but of the highest quality, is this little Thriller from the golden age of the genre.
Barbera Stanwyck deserved an Oscar for her performance as the bed ridden woman who overhears her planned death over the telephone and tries to piece together her ensuing fate. Will she die or is it her imagination?
The film is very well handled and far from conventional. The characters are complex and the mystery that unravels is both intriguing in it's harsh expectedness and yet, surprising as well.
The cast all perform well including Burt Lancaster in an early role as the suspicious husband of Stanwyck, who is set up as her would be murderer.
Ending is a classic bit of dark cinema with a deliciously, blackly comic final line.
This film serves an important role in the evolution of film Noir in the presentation of it's central characters. Neither one is very likeable. Stanwyck henpecks Lancaster throughout and belittles him. She allows him absolutely no freedom and little in the way of confidence. She also turns out to be something of a hypochrondriac. Lancaster is aloof and maddening in his desire for financial freedom. His willingness to try ANYTHING to obtain security and escape disgrace and the law make him a somewhat despicable character.
Normally such things do not add up to create a good film, but the payoff becomes that much more satisfying in a morbid way and that much more intriguing. Seen as a reflection as the corruption of the spirit through ruthless ambition and apathy, the film remains fascinating. In this film that old saying remains true: Money IS the root of all evil.