Absolutely Fantastic

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Complicated (multiple flashbacks within flashbacks) but highly engrossing, Sorry Wrong Number still packs a wallop - even with today's more blasé and less tolerant audiences. Litvak's driving direction with its remarkably mobile camera moodily prowling through appropriately lavish sets and strikingly noirish natural locations, superbly abets Lucille Fletcher's grippingly bizarre screenplay. Litvak isn't afraid to use close-ups either. And his players not only stand up to this relentless probing but offer some of the greatest performances of their lives. Both Stanwyck and Lancaster make formidable principals. Outstanding character study contributors include Shirley Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, Harold Vermilyea and the ever-reliable Ed Begley. Note Joyce Compton as the blonde who briefly interrupts Begley's all-alone-in-the-big-house phone chat; and director Anatole Litvak as a diner in dark glasses - As an inside joke, Lancaster testily turns to waiter Vuolo and pointedly asks: "Who is that man?").

When I watched this movie as a child, it absolutely terrified me! When asked what the scariest film I'd ever seen was, 'Sorry, Wrong Number' was always at the top of my list. How I wish I didn't watch it again as an adult, because unlike other classics that have held up over the years ('The Godfather', 'Psycho', 'The Graduate'), this one sadly didn't.It stars Barbara Stanwyck as a woman who suffers from Hypochondria due to a mental impairment, and her husband Burt Lancaster ~ a man who works for Stanwyck's father. Having been mistreated and abused for years in his position, Lancaster decides his only way out of the marriage is by having Stanwyck killed. Stanwyck accidentally overhears a murder plot in a mis-transfered phone call, and starts realizing she is the intended target. When Lancaster starts having regrets and attempts to warn his wife of what will be occurring, it is obviously too late ~ when the killer answers the phone the final time and says, 'sorry, wrong number'. I'm sure it was absolutely terrifying in its day...and definitely was to a ten year old child! But the years have unfortunately diminished that fright factor.

A great example of film noir, 'Sorry, Wrong Caller' has a taut script, with a bed-ridden woman getting connected into a phone call between thugs planning a murder that evening, and proceeding to tell her story in flashbacks as the fateful hour looms. Barbara Stanwyck plays her character very well, ranging from dominating rich girl to frightened invalid, and a young Burt Lancaster is her handsome husband who wants to be more than a kept man. Director Anatole Litvak includes some nice shots, including a creepy pan back from Stanwyck's bedroom, out her window, and down to the shadow of an approaching man, and he's also faithful to the original radio play, which I first read in McSweeney's 'Hitchcock and Bradbury Fistfight in Heaven'. Definitely worth checking out.

This somewhat "better-than-average", 1948, Hollywood Thriller was originally a 30-minute radio play written in 1943 by Lucille Fletcher.So, with that in mind, you can just imagine how much extra padding this film's story required in order to turn it into a 90-minute vehicle for the likes of Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster.Featuring some excellent b&w camera-work, "Sorry, Wrong Number" certainly contains enough suspense and tension-filled moments to allow the viewer to forgive its decidedly convoluted storyline that (once again) gets itself bogged down with way too much "flashback" nonsense.Well, if nothing else - Being a vintage, Hollywood production, "Sorry, Wrong Number" does, at least, rise above your typical "screwball" comedy which seemed to prevail during that particular era in movie-making history.