Film review: Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

This originated as a radio play, and, having watched it, I can see why Orson Welles might say it was the best radio play ever. It's a pretty famous play/film, but if you don't know how it goes, I'll try not to reveal too much, because this one has a real sting in the tail.  It begins with Barbara Stanwyck (Mrs. Leona Stevenson) sitting in bed in a fancy New York City apartment on a hot Summer night trying to get hold of her husband (Burt Lancaster), who should have been home hours ago, but only getting a busy signal at his work.  So she tries the operator, who connects her only for her to first get the busy signal... but just as she's about to put the phone down, she gets a crossed line.  The two men she can hear cannot hear her, and to her horror she realizes they are discussing murdering a woman for a "client" at 11:15 that night.  The time is significant because they are timing it so that a passing train muffles her screams.  Just as they are about to give the address of the house they will break into, the line disconnects again.  Leona is frantic, particularly as she is (a) an invalid, confined to her bed, and (b) alone in her big apartment, the couple who helps to look after her having gone out, and her husband (Henry) being missing.  And in that bed she remains (except for brief staggering excursions to the door or window) for the course of the movie, which is made up of flashbacks from her point of view and the point of view of various people she 'phones or who 'phone her.  These include:
Leona's father, the self-made drugstore millionaire (played by Ed Begley Sr.) for whom Henry (reluctantly) works (and, we later find out (or do we?), from whom he is stealing)

Nice Sally Anne Lord (Ann Richards), Leona's roommate in college from whom she stole George,

and who is now married to a DA, and whom she contacts because Henry's secretary tells her that her husband left the office with Sally and never returned. Sally reveals that her husband has been investigating Henry and that she followed her husband to a deserted beach house on a lonely part of Staten Island that was registered to a Waldo Evans.  And guess what?  Waldo Evans also calls her, and tells her a tale of how he, a humble horse-loving chemist was talked into slightly diluting pharmaceuticals and selling the skimmed-off parts to a shady character so that Henry could make up money to leave his father-in-law's company and set up for himself.  But they screwed up by trying to double-cross said shady character, leading him to demand hundreds of thousands of dollars in recompense, and suggested that the way to get it would be to claim on the insurance when Leona dies.  Waldo also reveals that the cops have just closed in, the shady character was arrested, but he got away. He is desperate that Leona relay this information to Henry.  "But where is Henry?" Leona asks frantically.  Well, says Waldo, he may be at the Bronx number he's about to give her, and if she finds him, she should tell him that he, Waldo, will also show up at that address soon.  Leona calls the number--and it's the morgue...
Another interlocutor is Leona's doctor for the condition that is keeping her bedbound.  This is (she thinks) a worsening heart condition, just like the one that killed her own mother in childbirth.  But the doctor reveals that it's all been psychosomatic, and he's told Henry that weeks ago.  Leona doesn't seem to feel better at this information.
Finally, she gets a call from Henry.  Earlier he'd sent her a telegram saying that he'd been called away suddenly to a convention in Boston, and he calls from New Haven saying he's changing trains on the way.  She  confronts him with all she's heard.  Will he admit guilt?  Is it all a plot by Sally to get him back?  Is he trying to frighten her to death?  No spoilers here, but the phone call does take place at...11:15.
This is a very tightly structured affair, so it feels a little artificial, and Stanwyck and Lancaster are not exactly likeable people, but it rushes you along to that kicker ending so fast that you won't object.  In fact, you'll be glad you dialed this nasty little film up.  (Yeesh.)