Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

In director Anatole Litvak's engrossing, expressionistically-filmed, Hitchcock-like psychological thriller and film noir classic from Paramount Pictures with cinematography by Sol Polito - it was adapted from a famous and popular 1943 CBS radio play (22 minutes in a one-half hour time slot) with Agnes Moorehead by the play's author Lucille Fletcher. The play was so successful that it was rebroadcast seven times and translated into fifteen languages. ("The prize-winning radio suspense drama that thrilled 40,000,000 people...now electrifies the screen!")

This highly-effective film noir with elements including illicit underworld drug-trafficking, embezzlement, blackmail, domestic strife, psychic paralysis and contracted murder was noted as having multiple, well-constructed but fragmented and convoluted flashbacks (with two flashbacks-within flashbacks!) and multiple narrators, some of whom were female. It combined elements of the "womens' film, horror (a woman in peril), a suspenseful mystery and melodrama. The main character was confined to one entrapping and claustrophobic room, with her only outlet being the telephone - which conveyed both revelations and miscommunications. In one of the film's posters, it basically gave away the plot:

"HELPLESS...ALONE...She heard her own murder being planned on the telephone!"

The unlikeable, possessive, selfish and spoiled female protagonist was also described as an "HEIRESS TO MILLIONS...WHO BOUGHT EVERYTHING SHE WANTED...INCLUDING THIS MAN!" - the tagline was a reference to her lower-class, weak-minded, handsome husband whom she bought off and stole from a female who was truly in love with him. By the film's conclusion, her feigned illness had caused her to become bedridden and neurotic - and the target of her own husband's criminal plotting.

• after the opening credits, inter-titles explained above a view of a busy old-fashioned telephone switchboard exchange: "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!!!"
• the suspenseful film opened in a Manhattan apartment (43 Sutton Place) with a view of a bedridden, spoiled, manipulative hypochondriac heiress Leona Cotterell Stevenson (Oscar-nominated Barbara Stanwyck, with her 4th and final Oscar nomination of her career), wearing a transparent bed-gown while smoking a cigarette and on the phone at about 9:25 PM; an invalid, Leona was confined to her bed or wheelchair on the top 3rd floor of a claustrophobic Manhattan apartment, and beginning to feel frustrated and vulnerable
• she repeatedly called from her home phone (PLaza 5-1098) to her husband VP Henry Stevenson's (Burt Lancaster) private office at the Cotterell Drug Company, but his phone was off-the-hook (seen briefly) and she was getting a busy signal; that particular night, her husband was late and overdue, and a couple working for her had the night off for an "important date or other," and she didn't know any of her neighbors
• during one call, she accidentally overheard a crossed-wires telephone conversation between two thugs, one of whom was named George who was instructing another person about how to commit a murder and faked robbery. Realizing that the two could not hear her, she listened as the two strangers discussed the lurid details of a planned murder plot (and faked robbery) for that evening at 11:15 (timed to coincide with the passage of a loud train) - "Everything OK for tonight?...Then I get in through the kitchen window at the back. Then I wait till the train goes over the bridge - in case her window is open and she should scream....Make it quick. Our client says he doesn't wish to make her suffer long...And don't forget to take the rings and bracelets - and the jewelry in the bureau drawer. Our client wishes to make it look like simple robbery"
• afterwards, Leona was "unnerved" by the "ghastly" call and was connected to two phone operators, including a Chief Telephone Operator; she continued to complain: "It was about a murder, a terrible, cold-blooded murder of a poor, innocent woman tonight at 11:15." She was particularly worried because her nurse had the night off, she was all alone in her Chicago apartment, and her husband had promised to be home by 6:00 PM; she was told it was impossible to trace the call because it had ended; as she was on the phone, the camera wandered around her room, looked out the window (at a passing train) and then continued ominously down the staircase to the first floor
• the neurotic woman reported her fears by phone to Police Sergeant Duffy (Cliff Clark) in her local Precinct 17, but he also downplayed her vague fears: ("But a clue of this kind that's so vague, well, it's not much more use to us than no clue at all..."); she worried to herself, popped some pills, and looked into her husband's separate bedroom and bemoaned - "Oh, Henry, why do you leave me alone?"
• she was interrupted by a person-to-person phone call from Chicago from James "J.B." Cotterell (Ed Begley), her domineering father - a wealthy, drug company industrialist who had hired son-in-law Henry to work in his company; the camera surveyed his apartment's bedroom - with pictures of his daughter and mounted stuffed growling animal heads; he was in the midst of a wild party with music, drinks, dancing and loud conversations, but claimed his house was like a "morgue"
• (during the course of the film, Leona had a series of telephone communications with numerous people, including her husband's secretary, her old friend and rival Sally Hunt, a biochemist who was colluding with her husband to embezzle funds through stolen drugs (from her father's drug company), and her own doctor who considered her a neurotic hypochondriac); Leona was unaware that Henry had a number of dirty secrets that he had kept from her during their 8 years of marriage
• at 10 PM, Leona frantically phoned Mrs. Elizabeth Jennings (Dorothy Neumann), her husband's spinsterish office secretary, who was playing Bingo during a womens' club gathering in her apartment building; Leona learned from the secretary that Henry had unexpectedly left the office in the afternoon for a lunch date with "a young lady...rather good-looking" - identified as Mrs. Frederick (Sally Hunt) Lord, who had waited in the office for him for about two hours
• in the film's first flashback, Henry briefly met with Sally (his ex-girlfriend) in his office, before making plans to meet her for an afternoon lunch date an hour later

First Flashback: Mrs. Frederick Lord (Sally Hunt) With Henry Stevenson in His Office

• Mrs. Jennings also remembered that a "Mr. Evans" kept calling Henry every week from Staten Island; Leona appeared flustered and upset following the call, and then received a "very important" phone call from Evans himself - he was very desperate to speak to the missing Henry - it intensified her feelings of distress
• Leona phoned the Lord residence to speak to Sally Lord (Ann Richards); as she waited for Sally to come to the phone, she overheard Sally's husband - the city's DA-lawyer Fred Lord (Leif Erickson) - who was typing a report regarding his "sting" investigation into Henry's association with the Bayonne (NJ) plant of the Cotterell Corporation, and a second "headquarters" location on Staten Island (at 20 Dunstan Terrace); in her own home in the presence of her husband, Sally felt awkward and upset with Leona's phone call after she was suspiciously asked about Henry's whereabouts: ("You're not keeping something from me, I hope")

2nd Flashback: Romantic Rivalry During College Days Between Henry, Leona and Sally

• Leona's second flashback about Sally Hunt brought her back to her college days at Matthews College for Women; during a college dance, the love-struck Leona cut in and stole away Henry's sweetheart-girlfriend Sally Hunt, one of her classmates; the spoiled daughter of the founder of a pharmaceutical company boasted about her wealthy father's ownership of the Cotterell Drug Company; she called herself "The Cough Drop Queen," and bragged about her British luxury car parked outside the campus gate - a Lagonda - purchased recently in Europe
• Henry shared that he came from a lower-class family in Grassville (a town known for its "steel pipes and mica parts") and admitted he was a HS dropout; eventually, she coaxed him into a romantic relationship, although they came from two entirely "different worlds"; Leona felt that Henry had potential to be something: "I think I can spot the real thing a mile away"; however, Henry felt he had a deprived upbringing - he grew up in a poor family with eight children, and his father was a drunkard: "There's nothing nice or pretty about my life," and was working in Grassville as a lowly drug-store employee - just a "meal ticket" job until he could get away
• Leona complimented Henry: ("You're young, healthy, ambitious, and you probably know the drug business upside down") and proposed that he meet her father; Henry was reluctant and felt out-classed: "Besides, what does a dame like you want with a guy like me?"
• as their relationship became more serious, Sally warned Leona about their mismatched class backgrounds: "Henry's not the kind of man to play around with. Don't play around with him anymore, please....He's just not your type and you know it as well as I do...Don't turn his head or he'll never be able to find himself again"; although they both vowed their true love for Henry, Leona was competitively determined to marry him: "If I want to make something of him, show him a good time, introduce him to people, that's my business. And if I want to marry him, that's my business, too"

Sally to Leona: "I happen to be in love with him, Leona"	Leona to Sally: "So am I"
Continuation of 2nd Flashback: Leona's Romancing of Henry - and the Increasing Competition Between Sally and Leona for Henry's Love

• Leona persisted: "When I want something, I fight for it. And I usually manage to get it"; after a short whirlwind romance and despite her domineering father's reluctance: ("The fellow has nothing, honey. No background, no education, no training...What do you want to throw yourself away for?"), and his view of Henry as a "worthless cluck of a husband" - to spite her father (and Sally), Leona married Henry; a montage of their marriage and first-class luxurious honeymoon (a cruise and trip around the world) followed their church wedding

Continuation of 2nd Flashback: Her Father's Reluctance to Leona's Marriage to Henry - She Also Stole Him Away From Sally Hunt

• at the conclusion of the second lengthy flashback, Leona gloated in her bed about her romantic victory over Henry's rival Sally Hunt; unexpectedly, she received a return phone call from Mrs. Lord (Sally) using a public pay phone in a local bar-restaurant away from her husband Fred's presence; she explained how she was concerned and "worried" about Henry and had to see him; she began to relate her concerns that began five weeks earlier - the start of the film's third flashback
• the 3rd flashback was initiated by a photograph of Leona and Henry in the society pages of the newspaper, with the caption: "Mr. And Mrs. Henry Stevenson - She is the former Leona Cotterell, the Cough Drop Queen of Lake Forest, Illinois, have taken a house for the summer in New York City. Mrs. Stevenson, in poor health for several years is here to consult the eminent specialist, Dr. Philip Alexander"; Sally's DA-lawyer-husband Fred vaguely hinted that he was working on a "hunch" including a "special investigation" involving Henry in some unspecified illegal activity, and she also overheard Fred's phone call with an associate that spoke of a scheme involving $5,000 dollars in marked $100 dollar bills
• to spy on her trench-coated husband and two of his associates, the naturally-curious Sally trailed them on a ferry to Staten Island, where they traveled to an old lunch shack, in front of a dreamlike, deserted beach house at an address marked 20 Dunstan Terrace that belonged to "W. Evans"; she saw a coded, flashing-light message sent from the upper floor window, transmitted to an off-shore boat that sped to the island's dock; she watched as a man disembarked and carried a briefcase into the house, as the boat sped away; she then watched as her husband and two others entered the house; a half-hour later, the threesome left the house, with Fred carrying the briefcase
• Sally admitted to Leona that she was utterly confused by the "mysterious activity" and claimed to Leona: "I just didn't seem to be able to connect Henry with all of this mysterious activity either"; she decided to visit Henry at his office "to find out the truth from him"; they met as planned for lunch at Maxine's, where he explained he was still married to Leona, but still lived in Chicago and worked for his father-in-law in a do-nothing VP job at the pharmaceutical company, the Cotterell Drug Company based in Chicago: ("Biggest drug business in the country...Push buttons, like all the other vice presidents...I'm the Invoice King"); he was interrupted to take a phone call, and then according to Sally, he never returned to the table and disappeared - she hypothesized: ("He is in trouble, desperate trouble. Fred's working on some kind of report for headquarters tonight. The case seems to be coming to a head, and he's been telephoning. I've heard him mention Henry's name over and over again. And there's someone else in it too, someone called Evans"); Sally was forced to end the call without any more nickels, and the bar-restaurant was closing down
• Leona became more distraught after the abrupt end to Sally's call and what had transpired, and with no one else in the building, she was unable to answer the incessant door buzzer from her 3rd floor apartment; her phone rang again - it was Sally now calling from a subway station phone; she had already been home, where she saw a police car out front; she reported that the house on Staten Island had burned down that afternoon, and three men were captured, but Waldo Evans escaped; Sally told Leona: "The whole thing has something to do with your father's company"; Leona became hysterical about the reports of police arrests and company malfeasance involving Henry; she blamed Sally for causing her upset: "Are you still jealous that I took Henry away from you years ago? Can't you bear to see me happy? Can't you stop telling lies and making trouble, even now?"; the call ended with Sally noticing Fred and his co-worker boarding a subway to meet with their Chief downtown
• Leona's next phone call was from Western Union - informing her that Henry would be unexpectedly gone for the weekend: ("Annual drug convention meeting, Boston, tomorrow. Taking next train out. Back Sunday morning"); she frantically re-played in her head the disturbing phrases that she recalled hearing, including: the cross-lines conversation between the two thugs, Sally's worries that Henry was in "trouble," and the words of the telegram that Henry suddenly went out of town
• at 11:00 PM, Leona attempted to place a call to Dr. Philip Alexander (Wendell Corey), her NYC doctor; a message was relayed to him in a NY nightclub where he was having a late dinner-show with his wife; he called her back, and declined Leona's insistence that he attend to her at once; he claimed he had sent a letter describing his "plan of action" for her over a week earlier; under pressure during the call, Dr. Alexander revealed to her his recent diagnosis given to Henry in his office 10 days earlier (that hadn't been shared with her)
• Dr. Alexander's conversation with Henry in his office provided the film's fourth flashback; the doctor began to explain to Henry how it appeared that Leona's health (heart) issues stemmed way back into her early childhood
• and then in the first of two flashbacks-within-a-flashback, Henry told how in their earliest married years, they had lived with Leona's father in Lake Forest, IL; as a hen-pecked 'kept' husband, he recalled how he had become very frustrated with his job and had bitter arguments with Leona about his forced employment with her father; he explained how he was only a do-nothing VP in his father-in-law's pharmaceutical company; he even admitted: "I have a nice office, my name on the door, even a secretary. But what do I do? Nothing...Working for your father is like running in a dream. No matter how hard you try, you know you'll never get anywhere...As long as I'm married to you, he'll never give me a real chance...I don't wanna just graft off your charity the rest of my life. I want a chance, a chance on my own"; Leona felt he was risking her father's million-dollar business by inquiring about other employment: "You're not going to throw away a million-dollar business like Cotterell for an idle whim....And to think my own husband turns up his nose at it," but Henry refused to listen to her and change his mind about cancelling his lunch engagement with her; she begged him: "Please, if you love me at all, don't do this. Henry, I beg you. I promise you, I'll talk to Dad. I'll do anything, anything you want, only don't leave me! Don't go away!"
• later that evening when Henry returned after seeking other employment, he was told by Leona's father that she had suffered a heart attack following their argument over her broken lunch date with him, and his dissatisfaction with his job; Leona's father ordered Henry to not upset Leona and dutifully obey all her wishes, due to her heart condition: "Leona can't stand being treated the way you did this morning. She never has been before, and she's not going to be now, by you or anyone...Think anything you'll like. But while you're in this house, you do what my daughter tells you to do"; Mr. Cotterell knew of Henry's meeting with Bill Ferguson - and had manipulated its outcome, since Ferguson was one of his customers; Henry was told in no-uncertain terms: "You haven't a chance. Just as long as you're my son-in-law, you're working for Cotterell's and nobody else"
• as the first flashback-within-a-flashback ended, Henry admitted to Dr. Alexander that he had to submit even though he wanted to "pull out"; the fourth flashback continued in Dr. Alexander's office, where Henry mused: "I suppose from that day on I began to - to compromise, always with the one hope in the back of my mind that somehow, someday, I'd win out on my own"; Leona's anxiety attacks subsided, and things went smoothly for another year, until the situation again changed with more arguments
• in the film's second flashback-within-a-flashback, Henry proposed renting a separate apartment for them, so they could have a home on their own: ("We just can't go on living with your father forever"); when Leona balked at the idea, saying that she would have to pay for it, Henry aired his frustrations: ("I'm supposed to follow you around like a pet dog tied to a chain....You've got me sewed up 16 different ways for three meals a day and pocket money...What do I do but keep running back and forth between that rotten office and that stuffy house of yours?...I wanna be my own boss, profiting by every bit of it. Not just a stooge on the outside looking in"); Leona suffered another debilitating attack
• Henry described her further physical deterioration: "Her attacks increased in violence and became more and more frequent. Sometimes it was just some little thing that'd set her off. And then, I guess it was about a year ago, she just seemed to give up hope of ever getting well, and took to her bed more or less permanently"; once they moved to NYC, she became an invalid who was mostly bed-ridden
• as the 2nd flashback-within-a-flashback ended, the story returned to the 4th flashback; Dr. Alexander revealed his recent diagnosis to Henry - that Leona's health (heart) issues were only psycho-somatic and didn't pose a serious risk of death: "There's absolutely nothing wrong organically with her heart. It's as sound as a bell...Her condition is mostly mental. She's what we call a cardiac neurotic. Her attacks don't spring from any physical weaknesses. They're brought on by her emotions, her temper and her frustrations"; however, he added: "Mentally she's very sick and her attacks are real enough. They give her acute distress, even pain. Given proper psychiatric treatment, she may snap out of it entirely. Live on for years and years"; with Henry's urging, Dr. Alexander planned to write Leona a letter with her diagnosis and send it in a few days
• the film returned to Leona's present-day, late-night phone call with the doctor at a nightclub-dinner - as he summed up: "That's just the way I left it with him, not two weeks ago"; Leona had obviously not received the letter he had written about her diagnosis, and Henry had not discussed it with her; Dr. Alexander suggested that she double her sedative dose and relax
• after hanging up the phone and screaming: "Liars, liars, liars!," she received a phone call from Waldo Evans (Harold Vermilyea), who had been attempting to contact Henry numerous times with important news; he told her three important things:
  • he had burned down his deserted house (at 20 Dunstan Terrace) on Staten Island - a rendezvous point [Note: Leona had already been told by Sally on a subway phone about the house burning down, and that Waldo had escaped]
  • "I do not believe it was Mr. Morano - the name is spelled M-O-R-A-N-O, who betrayed us to the police, as Mr. Morano has already been arrested. So there's no necessity for the money now"
  • Waldo claimed he had escaped and would be at a Manhattan address until midnight; he left a forwarding number
• to clarify for her what "the true facts" were, Waldo began to explain how he had been engaged in a fraudulent scheme with Henry for over a year - the start of the film's 5th flashback
• Waldo, a timid bio-chemist, was working at the Cotterell Drug Company's medicinal plant in Cicero, IL; Henry eventually persuaded the milquetoast Waldo to engage in a scheme to falsify chemical production reports, and secretly remove (steal or skim) drugs from the Cotterell drug plant and sell them for a profit to a crooked fence named Morano (William Conrad) for a cut of the profits: ("We'll split the money three ways"); after about 7 months, after Waldo was transferred to the Bayonne, NJ plant, Henry became even more greedy and began to swindle Morano by absconding with some of the drugs in order to make more of a profit: ("You'll be your own boss, a partner with me....We'll operate on our own and split Morano's share")
• a few months later, Henry had Waldo purchase a large but empty Staten Island beach house that became their "headquarters"; twice a week, Waldo would travel to the beach house with stolen drugs from the Bayonne plant; Waldo explained that the scheme became more complex: "The character of our work now became more complex, inasmuch as I was directly selling the products as well as removing them from the plant"; about 3 months earlier at the Staten Island house, Henry and Waldo were confronted by Morano who had caught on to their swindling; he accused them of bypassing him to make a profit on their own: ("Since you went into business for yourself, we've suffered quite a loss. Now if you were to turn back what you've accumulated, and pay us, say, uh, $200,000 for our injured feelings..."); the blackmailer insisted that Henry pay off an IOU debt of $200,000 within 90 days
• it was suggested by Morano that Henry's sick wife Leona's life insurance policy could cover the debt; the threat of blackmail spurred Henry to get rid of his manipulative and controlling wife in order to inherit her estate (and an insurance payout), to pay off the debt of $200,000 to the corrupt Morano, by hiring a hitman to kill Leona [Note: Henry couldn't count on her dying since her heart illness was only psychosomatic.]
• when the 5th flashback ended, Waldo told Leona that the IOU debt came due four days earlier - accounting for Henry's "distress" when an extension on the debt was denied; he also reiterated the points that he had covered with Leona, including the fact that he deliberately burned down the beach house to destroy the evidence; in particular, he emphasized that Morano's recent arrest put him in police custody (where he was squealing to the authorities about Henry's role); therefore, Henry would no longer be threatened by blackmail, and his murder-for-hire scheme to eliminate his wife was no longer necessary ("it would not be necessary to raise the money")
• Leona began to suddenly realize and fear that she was to be the intended victim of the planned homicide; she dialed the number (BOwery 2-1000) given to her by Waldo where Henry might be located; she was told by a deep-voiced male that Mr. Stevenson was not there, and that she had dialed the city morgue!; she was devastated; at 11:00 PM, she dialed the Police Department ("Get me a hospital. I can't be alone, I'm telling you! Hurry! Hurry!"); she asked to immediately hire a "trained nurse" and begged: "I'm a sick woman and I'm all alone in this horrible empty house!", but they declined to help
• the camera retreated backwards out her open window and down to the ground level, where the dark shadow of the 'murder-for-hire' intruder was standing outside of her apartment building; he entered through an opened window into a ground-level apartment; she heard a click on her phone, fearing it was someone lifting a receiver on the downstairs extension: ("There's someone in this house. There's someone in the kitchen and they're listening to me now..."); Leona was powerless and time was dwindling in the thrilling finale; she became increasingly desperate as the time of the predicted murder at 11:15 pm approached

Leona Dialing Bowery 2-1000 - The City Morgue!

Leona's Desperate Phone Call to the Police and the Hospital

Dark Shadow of the Murder-For-Hire Intruder Outside the Apartment

• Henry called person-to-person collect from a phone booth in New Haven, CT where he was on his way to Boston; all alone by herself, Leona admitted she was worried that there was an intruder: ("There's someone in this house right now. I'm sure of it"); she listened as the train loudly passed by her window, marking it at about 11:10 PM; she relayed to him how she had just learned from Waldo Evans that he had been stealing from her father's company; she went into more detail about his dirty dealings, but Henry denied any wrong-doing: ("The house on Staten Island, 20 Dunstan Terrace, had been burned down, and that the police knew everything and that Morano had been arrested....They said you were a criminal, Henry, a desperate man. And Evans said... Evans said you wanted me to - to die. And that money, Henry, that money those people wanted")
• Leona said she would have bailed him out with money if he had asked: ("I would've given it to you gladly if it would've saved your life"); Henry instructed her to go to her balcony and scream for help, because she only had three more minutes to live: ("I want you to get out of that bed and walk to the window. I want you to scream out into the street"); she was frozen in fear: "I can't move, Henry! I'm too frightened!"
• he also hurriedly confessed his guilt: ("I confess everything, everything. I did steal from your father, and I was so desperate I even tried - I arranged to have you..."); he admitted that he had plotted her murder, but also regretted that it was too late to stop the killer
• but then, the intruder's shadow appeared in the stairwell; Henry listened as she screamed out: "Henry, there's somebody coming up the stairs"; Henry's last words to her were to save himself: "I'll burn for it if they get me. They'll know. They'll find out from Morano!"
• she hung up the phone and was murdered at 11:15, when her hysterical screams were drowned out by a passing train; the killer entered her room, covered her with his shadow, and strangled her to death as she screamed out: "Please don't, I'll give you anything!"
• in the final line of dialogue when Henry called her back (and was about to be arrested), a white gloved hand picked up Leona's phone receiver. Henry heard the film's title spoken by an unknown voice: "Sorry, wrong number"

"Henry, there's somebody coming up the stairs"	Intruder's Shadow in Stairwell Outside Leona's Room	Leona Hanging Up the Phone
The Shadow of the Intruder Over Leona Before She Was Murdered	Last Line: "Sorry, wrong number" (notice their toppled marriage photo in the background)	White Gloved Hand Replacing the Receiver