By David in TN
friday, june 27, 2025 at 11:52:00 p.m. edt
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:30 and 10 a.m. ET is Anatole Litvak’s Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), with Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, Ed Begley and Harold Vermilyea
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:30 and 10 a.m. ET is Anatole Litvak’s Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), with Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, Ed Begley, Harold Vermilyea.
Film Noir Guide: “Stanwyck plays a ‘cardiac neurotic,’ a wealthy hypochondriac whose mental illness has caused her to become, in her words, ‘a helpless invalid.’ Lancaster plays her henpecked, but independent-minded husband. One evening, while Lancaster is out of town, Stanwyck, thanks to a coincidental crossing of telephone wires, overhears a couple of thugs talking about murdering a woman later that night.
“Frantic, she telephones the police but they dismiss her as a kook. Via flashback, we see how Stanwyck stole Lancaster away from his girl (Richards) and how they eventually married over the objections of her father, pharmaceuticals tycoon Begley. After Lancaster becomes involved with vicious gangsters and industrial espionage, the D.A.’s office starts closing in on him and his reluctant chemist partner (Vermilyea).
“Between flashbacks, we are treated to Stanwyck’s increasingly hysterical outbursts over the telephone, her only means of communication with the outside world, as she comes to believe that SHE’s the intended murder victim. Veteran character actor Corey has a small role as Stanwyck’s doctor.
“Stanwyck, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance, is outstanding as the neurotic and domineering wife, and Lancaster is brilliantly cast against type as the pathetic milquetoast who seeks to break from his financial dependence on his wife and antagonistic father-in-law. Based on a radio drama starring Agnes Moorehead, Sorry, Wrong Number is a classic film noir that shouldn’t be missed.”
This was Barbara Stanwyck’s fourth and last Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, following Stella Dallas (1937), Ball of Fire (1941), and Double Indemnity (1944).
Unfortunately, she was up against Irene Dunne, the Queen of Paramount, who was up for the fifth and last time that year, for I Remember Mama, in which Dunne played the real-life, resourceful, Norwegian immigrant wife and mother, whose daughter parlayed a short story (“Mama’s Bank Account”) into a fortune, through a classic movie, plays, and TV series.
Stanwyck and Dunne both knocked each other off, making way for Jane Wyman to win, playing a deaf-mute who gets brutally raped in Johnny Belinda. That was one of the earliest “crip” Oscars.
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2 comments:
The writer of the radio drama, Lucille Fletcher, was married to Bernard Herrmann at the time, and he scored the program but unfortunately not the movie (Franz Waxman composed it). She also wrote "The Hitch-hiker" for radio, which later was adapted into a classic TWILIGHT ZONE. Bernie scored that radio drama as well, and the TV version used some of his music.
Interesting background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_Fletcher
She divorced Herrmann because he was having an affair with her cousin!
-RM
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Richard L. Bare's This Side of the Law (1950) with Kent Smith and Viveca Lindfors.
This Side of the Law is a relatively obscure film. Smith is trapped in a dry cistern and wondering whether he will die there. The main portion of the rest of the film is a flashback to a week earlier then forward, detailing the events that landed him in that precarious pit.
His wife (Lindfors) is estranged, apparently as a result of her husband's many affairs and general callousness.
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