JohnHowardReid 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?").

Leofwine_draca SORRY, WRONG NUMBER is a famous film noir with a great little premise: an invalid wife picks up the phone only to overhear a murder being planned. The story goes from there, but that premise is so memorable that the telephone has become well-used as an object of terror in cinema ever since. Barbara Stanwyck delivers a performance entirely from her bed and is typically intense, while most of the tale plays out in flashback. It's complex, complicated stuff, involving family control, drug smuggling, and business malpractice, and there are well-judged performances from Burt Lancaster as Stanwyck's absent husband and a youthful William Conrad as a slimy killer. Watch out for that shocker of an ending.

drystyx This bit of alleged suspense has zero suspense. It is so predictable that it isn't funny.1948 was a bit early for this kind of tripe, but even then the neo Nazi propaganda machine of Hollywood was diligent in making sure the darker haired woman in any movie would get killed off. It got even more blatant later, particularly in the seventies when most viewers were so drug crazed, and today most of those who rate here are among those brain washed Nazi die hard dorks.We know everything that will happen long before it happens, so it's just an ordeal for masochists and sadists to enjoy, and as we know, those human demons love to push their hatred down everyone else's throats, and they guffaw about it like the red necks they are.Just another sick movie for sick devil worshipers.

Mike Bozart Boy was I surprised by this one. I'm a big film-noir junkie, but for some reason I never saw this movie on any top 20 - or even top 50 - list for this genre. (Maybe I was looking at the wrong lists. ha-ha)I rented it on a whim, mainly to see a movie with a much-younger- than-Big-Valley-era Barbara Stanwyck. (I'm not quite a baby boomer.) Well, as others have pointed out on here, she is excellent in her frightened, hopelessly neurotic, bedridden role.The story is intricately told in real time with the aid of gripping flashbacks. After a plodding start, buckle up and stay very alert, as a ton of expository material gets dumped out in the middle third of the movie.The movie's ending is not quite what I thought (which I supremely liked; I don't care for endings that you can see coming in the first five minutes).So, make some popcorn. Then get the room quiet. (No talking.) Keep your mind focused on the screen. It's a suspenseful and cleverly deceptive ride. Enjoy!