While on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a murder plot and attempts to prevent it.While on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a murder plot and attempts to prevent it.While on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a murder plot and attempts to prevent it.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 3 nominations total
Bill Cartledge
- Page Boy
- (uncredited)
Cliff Clark
- Police Sergeant Duffy
- (uncredited)
Joyce Compton
- Cotterell's Blonde Girlfriend
- (uncredited)
Ashley Cowan
- Clam Digger
- (uncredited)
Yola d'Avril
- French Maid
- (uncredited)
Suzanne Dalbert
- Cigarette Girl
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAnatole Litvak: Where Henry is having lunch with Sally, he asks his waiter if he knows who the gentleman is in the dark glasses at the table behind him. It is the director.
- GoofsTwice, Leona turns on a radio, and music begins instantly and strongly. Radios of the film's era contained vacuum tubes that needed some time to warm up.
- Quotes
Henry Stevenson: [to Leona] I want you to do something. I want you to get yourself out of the bed, and get over to the window and scream as loud as you can. Otherwise you only have another three minutes to live.
- Crazy creditsPROLOGUE: "In the tangled networks of a great city, the telephone is the unseen link between a million lives...It is the servant of our common needs-the confidante of our inmost secrets...life and happiness wait upon its ring...and horror...and loneliness...and...death!!!"
- ConnectionsEdited into Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)
Featured review
Lacks the tight suspense of the radio thriller...too much padding!
Sorry, but 'Sorry, Wrong Number' loses a lot in its transition to the screen. For one thing, there are too many flabby flashbacks--a form quite popular in the '40s but used extensively in this film, ad nauseum. All of the suspenseful action in the bedroom of the bedridden victim is held at bay while we watch another endless flashback attempting to show us how selfish and unworthy this woman is. If you heard the original radio drama with Agnes Moorehead giving a spine-chilling portrait of Leona, you'll see why the film becomes too diffuse in an attempt to give us "filler material". The fact that Lucille Fletcher adapted her own work for the screen would give the viewer hope that this is going to be just as good as the radio drama--but it's not. Barbara Stanwyck gives an excellent performance, bordering on hysteria toward the finale--but it's an actressy performance and not as controlled as some of her other film noir roles. Burt Lancaster has a colorless role and can't do much with it. Ann Richards is impressive as the woman who tries to warn Leona. By expanding the plot outside the bedroom, Fletcher created a confusing number of sub-plots that simply take away from the tension. Too much padding actually hurts the film. Anatole Litvak's direction is strong--but not strong enough to put the film on the same level with the classic radio drama. The plot is overcomplicated to the nth degree.
Trivia note: The only other film with such heavy use of flashbacks to tell a complicated story is THE LOCKET ('47), but it was done more efficiently than it is here.
Trivia note: The only other film with such heavy use of flashbacks to tell a complicated story is THE LOCKET ('47), but it was done more efficiently than it is here.
helpful•2512
- Doylenf
- Apr 16, 2001
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Zalim, pogresan broj
- Filming locations
- Hollywood, California, USA(telephone switchboard at a telephone company office on Gower St.)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $1,838
- Runtime1 hour 29 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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