Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 28-November-04
Spoiler Rating: High

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

"Sorry, Wrong Number" began as a radio play, and I can imagine how electrifying it must have been to listen to the increasingly panicked telephone calls of an invalid who overhears men plotting her murder. The idea of being trapped and helpless, combined with the frustration of using the phone, creates a powerful situation for horror and suspense (which, as anyone who has gotten lost in a voice mail system can attest, is still potent today). By fleshing out the story with backgrounds and motives, the movie loses a degree of urgency and the quick, breathless progression from distress to shock to terror. But due in large part to a terrific star turn by Barbara Stanwyck, it's still a mighty engrossing tale.

The opening scene finds Stanwyck's Leona Stevenson confined to her bed in a profusion of diamonds, lace, and medication. She is trying without success to locate her husband Henry (Burt Lancaster), who was supposed to spend the evening with her after their house staff went home. About to hang up, she suddenly gets patched in to a party line on which two men are discussing a murder scheduled to take place that night. When the police and the operator tell her there's nothing they can do, she begins a series of calls that shed new light on her life, past and present.

Leona and Henry's history falls into place like pieces of a puzzle, each provided by someone at the other end of the phone. We first get a glimpse of why she's such a spoiled little whiner when her tycoon father (Ed Begley) makes his nightly call from Chicago. This vision is expanded when Leona recalls in a flashback how she stole Henry from her college roommate Sally (Ann Richards), using his blue-collar ambition to coerce him into wanting her and a well-timed medical crisis to force her father to agree to the match. On a tip from her husband's secretary, Leona contacts the old roommate and learns that Henry is being investigated for some unknown crime. (This is the first call in which the speaker offers an implausible amount of detail, but at least Sally has the excuse of an old flame.) After a revealing discussion with her doctor about her own dirty laundry, Leona finally takes an incoming call from the mysterious Mr. Evans (Harold Vermilyea). Though she's now in a state of hysteria, enough of his incredible story sinks in to make her understand that her life and her husband's may be in danger. By the time she finally gets Henry on the line, both their fates are sealed.

"Sorry, Wrong Number" augments the core suspense of the original with an extreme cynicism, about rich people, poor people, and even marriage in general. The characters in the film are flawed in myriad ways, and the impersonal telephone lines emphasize their inability and unwillingness to reach each other, help each other, or communicate with each other productively. At the center of it all is Leona, a thoroughly disagreeable harpy made compelling by Stanwyck's inherent spark and the notion that she might get what she deserves — a notion seductive to most people, I imagine, because it's so very frightening.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.