Sorry, Wrong Number

Leona Stevenson is bedridden, wealthy and alone. She calls her husband, the lines cross, and she lands in the middle of two men talking: a woman is to be killed at eleven that night. She hangs up, calls the operator, calls the police, and nobody takes her seriously. For the next ninety minutes she is on the telephone, and every call produces another piece. What she works out in the end is simple: the woman is her, and the order came from her husband. All the tension is in the immobility. Leona cannot go anywhere, and the world outside is built only from the voices she hears on the phone and from flashbacks. Her money is part of the trap too: her father's fortune bought the husband, and he could not carry it. Anatole Litvak directed. The screenplay is by Lucille Fletcher, from her own radio play of 1943. Barbara Stanwyck plays Leona and Burt Lancaster the husband. Agnes Moorehead created the part on radio and that version was broadcast many times; the film went to Stanwyck instead. She was nominated for the best actress Academy Award for it. Who it is for: anyone who likes film noir and suspense built in a single room. Who it is not for: anyone wanting speed. The flashbacks break up the story, Leona is unpleasant throughout, and the solution will look guessable to a viewer today.