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Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Rate: 5
Viewed: 7/16, 6/24

SorryWrong
7/16: I thought I was going to see an intelligent film noir in Sorry, Wrong Number.

Instead, I got the most convoluted, stupidest, and hokiest mess ever. Taking on the same type of risk, Orson Welles did it better in The Lady from Shanghai. The overwrought plot is difficult to follow and is often uninteresting, leaving me with a neverending chain of eye-rollers. Anatole Litvak's use of flashbacks is so heavy-handed that the feel is akin to soap opera.

Barbara Stanwyck can be great at times, but when she's hysterical, she overacts. Every time she yelled, "I'm a sick woman!," I wanted to tell her to shut the hell up. She should've called the police. The melodrama, mostly from her own creation and the labyrinthic plot, has become too much for me to take. The best part is the ending when her character was finally killed so the movie could die mercifully.

On the other hand, star power is written all over Burt Lancaster's face. Unfortunately, along with William Conrad, Sorry, Wrong Number is The Killers all over again, restraining Burt Lancaster from what he can do with his character. At least, he recovered from the mess by appearing in better films while pledging his undying loyalty to Barbara Stanwyck for helping him out professionally.

All in all, Sorry, Wrong Number is among most melodramatic films made.

6/24: What I hate about Sorry, Wrong Number is it takes forever to get to the conflict.

For a good deal of time, I'm forced to put up with Barbara Stanwyck's hysterics. Enough is enough. The movie is saved by the final ten minutes with her character killed. I call that good riddance. The story is so contrived that it's a case of a short 22-minute play being blown up to four times as long.

All in all, Sorry, Wrong Number is ridiculous.