Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Directed by Anatole Litvak. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, Harold Vermilyea, Leif Erickson, William Conrad, Ed Begley, John Bromfield.

Noir-ish suspenser with Stanwyck as a bedridden invalid who inadvertently overhears a murder plot over her phone line, but is incapable of doing anything about it. The actress pulls out all the stops, but the story is expanded from Lucille Fletcher’s twenty-something-minute radio play, and the extensive flashbacks that fill out the empty space make the affair unnecessarily convoluted, sapping away the tension. In an early role, Lancaster plays her weak and dubious husband, and portraying such an out-of-character type is distracting. Stanwyck’s meticulous psychological breakdown (earning her the fourth and final Oscar nomination of her career) and a hair-raising finale—an unexpected one, at that, considering the tyrannical influence of the Hays Code—make it worth watching, but it worked better as a concise radio performance, and should have been better considering its commendable technical credits and reliable cast. Co-produced by Hal B. Wallis; Fletcher herself penned the screenplay adaptation.

59/100