Sorry, Wrong Number

"Tangled Wires... Whispering of Murder! Tangled Lives... Fighting to Escape!"

1948 1h 29m EN

👍

6.8

SOLID

★6.8TMDB · 219

ThrillerMystery

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.

“Tangled Wires... Whispering of Murder! Tangled Lives... Fighting to Escape!”

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Cast

Barbara Stanwyck
Leona Cotterell Stevenson
Burt Lancaster
Henry Stevenson
Ann Richards
Sally Hunt Lord
Wendell Corey
Dr. Philip Alexander
Harold Vermilyea
Waldo Evans
Ed Begley
James 'J.B.' Cotterell
Leif Erickson
Fred Lord
William Conrad
Morano

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Anatole Litvak
Writers: Lucille Fletcher
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

RUNTIME

Did you know

89 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

ERA

Did you know

78 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Anatole Litvak, shot by Sol Polito. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Franz Waxman. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster and Ann Richards carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Tangled Wires... Whispering of Murder! Tangled Lives... Fighting to Escape!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0040823 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Anatole Litvak directs. Sol Polito behind the camera. Franz Waxman scores. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

189 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.
278 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
3Directed by Anatole Litvak, shot by Sol Polito. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Franz Waxman. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster and Ann Richards carry the top of the cast.
6Marketing tagline: "Tangled Wires... Whispering of Murder! Tangled Lives... Fighting to Escape!".
7IMDB entry: tt0040823 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Classified under 14 themes, including "husband wife relationship", "telephone", "family business ", "flashback".

The technical file

Cinematography: Sol Polito
Original score: Franz Waxman
Costume design: Edith Head
Makeup / hair: Wally Westmore
Runtime: 89 min · 1h 29m
Status: Released
Original language: EN
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Also by

Anatole Litvak

Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

SWITCH.2020-05-27
★ 7/10
'Sorry, Wrong Number' isn't a film that leaves a strong lasting impression, but its narrative and visual inventiveness and a thoroughly engaging plot make it an enjoyable journey into 40s film noir. If anything, you leave it with a great appreciation for Lucille Fletcher's devilishly simple premise, one that certainly isn't dulled by the transition from radio to cinema. - Daniel Lammin Read Daniel's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-sorry-wrong-number-an-inventive-slice-of-1940s-film-noir
CinemaSerf2026-10-09
★ 7/10
"Leona" (Barbara Stanwyck) is a wealthy bedridden woman who uses her telephone as a lifeline with an outside world which she has increasingly decided to shun. It's when making a call one evening that she overhears two men plotting a murder. Terrified, she tries to reach her husband "Henry" (Burt Lancaster) but he's nowhere to be found. She tries the police but what can she tell them? That is when she begins to try and rationalise what she has heard and for the next tautly directed and paced ninety minutes we begin to learn a little about her, her relationship with her husband and about his own activities with chemist "Evans" (Harold Vermilyea) and the mobster "Morano" (William Conrad). As the story unfolds so does the palpable sense of threat - but who is the target? Is there really a target at all or is she just a neurotic mess of a woman? Her constant and increasingly frenetic use of her telephone serves as an effective conduit for a series of flashbacks that assemble in an episodic, almost compartmentalised, fashion a psychological jigsaw puzzle that exposes something of this frankly quite unpleasant woman, her ambitious and frustrated husband and so go some way to explaining how she has ended up in bed in her townhouse all alone. Any assumptions we may make at the start are quickly disabused by a really strong effort from Stanwyck who manages to ensure we are more and more invested in the fate of her potential victim and dare I say, I even started to warm to the woman a little as the story progressed. Lancaster isn't so impressive, but he does enough and Franz Waxman's menacing score helps bring something of the Hitchcock to this darkly lit film noir that shows Stanwyck to be quite the star.