***SPOILERS*** Being that "Sorry Wrong Number" was originally a 22 minute radio suspense/thriller staring Agnes Moorehead as the tragic and doomed Leona Stevenson it had to have incorporated into it a number of multiple flashbacks, including a very long and effective flashback within a flashback, to put on enough running time for it to be a full-length motion picture. Still it packs quite a wallop with an almost unbearable and heart-stopping & nail biting ending.
Trying to get in touch with her husband Henry J. Stevenson, Burt Lancaster, the vice president of her fathers James B. Cotterell, Ed Begely, giant pharmaceutical conglomerate Leona, Barbara Stanwyck, overhears on his office phone, that was left off the hook, a conversation between two men planning a murder someone that very evening. Bed-ridden with a heart condition Leona calls the police to stop the murder from happening. What Leona doesn't know until it's too late is that the murder victim is her and the person behind it is non other then her dear and loving husband Henry J. Stevenson.
Marrying into money Henry always felt that he was nothing but a leach and would never get anywhere as long his father-in-law and wife, Mr. Cotterell & Leona, controlled his life and finances. Given the job as vice president of the Cotterell Corp. all Henry did was fill out forms and attend board meeting with him having nothing to say about the future of the corporation. Henry feels that he's nothing more then an overpaid and glorified paper pusher who'll always remain that way.
Henry wanted to make it big in the world of business but he wanted to do it all by himself not on the coat-tails of his very successful father-in-law Mr. Cotterell. That cause tensions between him and Leona to the point where she suffered a number of heart attacks that left her a bed-ridden invalid.
It was then that Henry came up with this bright idea to siphon off shipments of Cotterell products to his middle man and Chicago mobster Morano, William Conrad, with the help of a Cotterell employee scientist and researcher Waldo Evens, Harold Vermilyea. Reluctant at first Waldo agreed to go along with Henry's plan and it all worked to perfection in splitting the ill-gotten cash with Henry & Marona until six month later. That's when Evens was transfered from the Chicago area to Bayonne N.J and that's when things really started to go sour for him and Henry.
Henry trying to ice out Marono by telling him that he's out of the deal and the criminal drug smuggling business was actually deep into it and into it so over his head that the NYC District Attorney office were alerted and began to investigate him. Marono also was on to Henry's actions and found the secret hideout on New York's Staten Island that he was using as a smuggling point in his and Evens' operation.
Gotten to by the Marono Mob Henry is told to come up with the stolen $200,000.00 in cash plus interest from their operation if he and Evens wanted to live. Reluctantly Henry agrees to have Leona murdered to collect the insurance money on her life in order to spear his own. But what Henry didn't know as the evening of Leona's planned murder came was that his whole plan had been exposed and put out of operation. With Marono & Co.being arrested by the FBI & NYPD and the hideout in Staten Island burned down by Evens making Leona's murder, and his involvement in it, not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for Henry & Co. But a one way ticket to the Sing Sing electric chair.
***SPOILERS*** Powerhouse ending with death lurking just outside her bedroom as Leona desperately tries to call for help with the only means of communications left open to her her bedside telephone. With Henry on the phone trying to check that everything is going smoothly in his wife's planned demise he soon realizes, by talking to Leona, that his plan was kaput and had been blown. Henry now knows that the murder of Leona will only result in his being sent to the Sing Sing death-house if it succeeds. With her life slowly ticking away as the hired killer gets closer to his helpless quarry for the kill all Leona can do to save her life is alert her neighbors, and police outside, by screaming her lungs out for help. But even that's been taken care off by the killer! With the exact time of the New York subway roaring across the 59th Sreet Bridge at the very moment of his attack. Thus downing out her last desperate and ear-splitting screams.
Trying to get in touch with her husband Henry J. Stevenson, Burt Lancaster, the vice president of her fathers James B. Cotterell, Ed Begely, giant pharmaceutical conglomerate Leona, Barbara Stanwyck, overhears on his office phone, that was left off the hook, a conversation between two men planning a murder someone that very evening. Bed-ridden with a heart condition Leona calls the police to stop the murder from happening. What Leona doesn't know until it's too late is that the murder victim is her and the person behind it is non other then her dear and loving husband Henry J. Stevenson.
Marrying into money Henry always felt that he was nothing but a leach and would never get anywhere as long his father-in-law and wife, Mr. Cotterell & Leona, controlled his life and finances. Given the job as vice president of the Cotterell Corp. all Henry did was fill out forms and attend board meeting with him having nothing to say about the future of the corporation. Henry feels that he's nothing more then an overpaid and glorified paper pusher who'll always remain that way.
Henry wanted to make it big in the world of business but he wanted to do it all by himself not on the coat-tails of his very successful father-in-law Mr. Cotterell. That cause tensions between him and Leona to the point where she suffered a number of heart attacks that left her a bed-ridden invalid.
It was then that Henry came up with this bright idea to siphon off shipments of Cotterell products to his middle man and Chicago mobster Morano, William Conrad, with the help of a Cotterell employee scientist and researcher Waldo Evens, Harold Vermilyea. Reluctant at first Waldo agreed to go along with Henry's plan and it all worked to perfection in splitting the ill-gotten cash with Henry & Marona until six month later. That's when Evens was transfered from the Chicago area to Bayonne N.J and that's when things really started to go sour for him and Henry.
Henry trying to ice out Marono by telling him that he's out of the deal and the criminal drug smuggling business was actually deep into it and into it so over his head that the NYC District Attorney office were alerted and began to investigate him. Marono also was on to Henry's actions and found the secret hideout on New York's Staten Island that he was using as a smuggling point in his and Evens' operation.
Gotten to by the Marono Mob Henry is told to come up with the stolen $200,000.00 in cash plus interest from their operation if he and Evens wanted to live. Reluctantly Henry agrees to have Leona murdered to collect the insurance money on her life in order to spear his own. But what Henry didn't know as the evening of Leona's planned murder came was that his whole plan had been exposed and put out of operation. With Marono & Co.being arrested by the FBI & NYPD and the hideout in Staten Island burned down by Evens making Leona's murder, and his involvement in it, not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for Henry & Co. But a one way ticket to the Sing Sing electric chair.
***SPOILERS*** Powerhouse ending with death lurking just outside her bedroom as Leona desperately tries to call for help with the only means of communications left open to her her bedside telephone. With Henry on the phone trying to check that everything is going smoothly in his wife's planned demise he soon realizes, by talking to Leona, that his plan was kaput and had been blown. Henry now knows that the murder of Leona will only result in his being sent to the Sing Sing death-house if it succeeds. With her life slowly ticking away as the hired killer gets closer to his helpless quarry for the kill all Leona can do to save her life is alert her neighbors, and police outside, by screaming her lungs out for help. But even that's been taken care off by the killer! With the exact time of the New York subway roaring across the 59th Sreet Bridge at the very moment of his attack. Thus downing out her last desperate and ear-splitting screams.