Sorry, Wrong Number is a real chiller. Film is a fancily dressed co-production by Hal B. Wallis and Anatole Litvak. Pair has smoothly coordinated efforts to give strong backing to the Lucille Fletcher script, based on her radio play.
Plot deals with an invalid femme who overhears a murder scheme through crossed telephone lines. Alone in her home, the invalid tries to trace the call. She fails, and then tries to convince the police of the danger. She gradually comes to realize that it is her own death that is planned.
Barbara Stanwyck plays her role of the invalid almost entirely in bed. Her reading is sock, the actress giving an interpretation that makes the neurotic, selfish woman understandable. Same touch is used by Burt Lancaster to make audiences see through the role of the invalid’s husband and how he came to plot her death.
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Considerable emphasis is placed on the score by Franz Waxman to heighten the gradually mounting suspense. Sol Polito uses an extremely mobile camera for the same effect, sharpening the building terror with unusual angles and lighting.
1948: Nomination: Best Actress ((Barbara Stanwyck)
