40 Fun Facts About Sorry, Wrong Number

At the end of Sorry, Wrong Number, what does Mrs. Stevenson realize about the murder plot she overheard?

She is the intended victim: the unnamed client who hired the two men is her own husband, away on a sudden business trip. She works it out only as someone enters the house.

Which actress earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination as the bedridden wife in the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number?

Barbara Stanwyck received her fourth and final Best Actress nomination for the part, playing a spoiled heiress who cannot leave her bed. The Academy gave her an honorary Oscar in 1982.

The first radio star of Sorry, Wrong Number later played meddling mother Endora on which 1960s sitcom?

Bewitched made her a television favourite from 1964 to 1972 and brought six Emmy nominations. On radio she had played Mrs. Stevenson again and again, always reading from the same copy of the script.

In Sorry, Wrong Number, what noise do the two plotters count on to drown out their target's screams?

A passing train crosses a nearby bridge at the chosen minute, and the plotters trust its roar to cover any cry. It rumbles past right on schedule in the closing scene.

Which famous director and radio star called Sorry, Wrong Number the greatest single radio script ever written?

Orson Welles knew the writer's work first-hand: he had performed another Lucille Fletcher thriller on his own radio show, and the play's original star came from his Mercury company.

What does Mrs. Stevenson keep getting when she dials her husband's office at the start of Sorry, Wrong Number?

A busy signal meets her for almost an hour, so she asks an operator to place the call instead. That favour crosses the wires and puts her on a line with two men planning a killing.

Four years before Sorry, Wrong Number, its leading lady played a wife plotting her husband's murder in which thriller?

Double Indemnity cast her as Phyllis Dietrichson, who draws an insurance salesman into killing her husband for the payout. It brought the third of her four Best Actress nominations.

What becomes of the hired murderer at the end of the radio play Sorry, Wrong Number, unusually for its series?

He escapes unpunished, a rarity for the crime series that aired the play. He even picks up the telephone to brush off the police before slipping away.

Where was Lucille Fletcher when a rude, well-dressed woman gave her the idea for Sorry, Wrong Number?

A grocery store on Manhattan's East Side was the scene: the woman refused to let Fletcher, shopping for a sick child, go ahead in line. Fletcher's daughter later called the play an act of revenge.

Which four-time Oscar nominee created the role of Mrs. Stevenson in the radio play Sorry, Wrong Number?

Agnes Moorehead carried the half-hour almost alone and returned for every repeat on the series. Before each live show she spent hours working herself into the character's agitated state.

Which radio thriller series, hosted in its early years by 'The Man in Black', first aired Sorry, Wrong Number?

Suspense ran on network radio from 1940 to 1962, nearly 950 episodes in all. This script became its most popular, and its star went on to appear in more episodes than any other actor.

Which hired man, named in the call Mrs. Stevenson overhears, speaks the last words of Sorry, Wrong Number?

George takes his orders from a first man who is never named. After the killing he lifts the receiver, gives the waiting police sergeant the title words, and hangs up.

At what time is the murder set to happen in Sorry, Wrong Number, just after a private patrolman leaves his beat?

11:15 p.m. is chosen with care: the patrolman goes for a drink at eleven, leaving the street unwatched. Mrs. Stevenson hears every detail of the timetable by accident.

What are the hired men in Sorry, Wrong Number told to take so the killing looks like a robbery?

Her jewelry is the cover story, and the first man tells his partner exactly where it is kept. Their client also wants the job done quickly, with as little blood as possible.

Which police sergeant in Sorry, Wrong Number tells Mrs. Stevenson her clues are too vague to act on?

Duffy points out that she has no names, no telephone number and no address, and that the men could be in any city. He is also the one left holding the line when the play ends.

What keeps the desk sergeant only half-listening as Mrs. Stevenson reports the plot in Sorry, Wrong Number?

His food order arrives mid-call, the wrong pastry at first, and he goes on eating while she talks. When the right one turns up, her report slips from his mind altogether.

Which street is the only clue to the murder's location that Mrs. Stevenson can give police in Sorry, Wrong Number?

Second Avenue is all she caught, and the officer reminds her how long that street is. He tells her to relax and leave the matter to the police.

How does Mrs. Stevenson learn that her husband will not be coming home in Sorry, Wrong Number?

A telegram is read to her over the phone by a Western Union operator, saying he tried to ring but could not get through. It adds that urgent business will keep him away until the next afternoon.

To which city does Mrs. Stevenson's husband claim urgent business is taking him in the play Sorry, Wrong Number?

Boston is the destination he gives, promising to return the next afternoon. Mrs. Stevenson is stunned, because he has hardly left her alone in the twelve years since she fell ill.

Which hospital, where she once had an operation, does Mrs. Stevenson ring for a nurse in Sorry, Wrong Number?

Henchley is where she had an operation two years earlier, and she hopes it will send someone to sit with her. The receptionist replies that nurses are too scarce to go out without good cause.

What does the hospital tell Mrs. Stevenson she must have before it can send a nurse in Sorry, Wrong Number?

A doctor's permission is required because the nursing staff is short-handed and goes out only for emergencies. Mrs. Stevenson wants company for her nerves, which does not count.

In Sorry, Wrong Number, what does Mrs. Stevenson demand the telephone company do about the men she overheard?

Trace the call is what she insists on, though she can give no name or number and the conversation is already over. The chief operator answers that the company can do so only when the police ask.

What did Lucille Fletcher say she first designed Sorry, Wrong Number to be, rather than simply a murder story?

An experiment in sound was her aim, with the voices on the telephone as the main focus. In performance the lead actress turned it into a character study and more of a thriller than Fletcher had planned.

Which American corporation complained about how Sorry, Wrong Number portrayed its unhelpful operators?

AT&T ran the phone service most listeners used and objected to the play's string of faceless, unhelpful operators. The complaint changed nothing, and the broadcast was repeated for years.

Which American network aired the radio series that premiered Sorry, Wrong Number and repeated it until 1960?

CBS was also where Lucille Fletcher had started out, typing scripts and running the music library. She decided there that she could write radio dramas at least as good as the ones she typed.

The Library of Congress added the first broadcast of Sorry, Wrong Number to which preservation list?

National Recording Registry entries are chosen as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. The 1943 performance joined in 2014, seven decades after it first unsettled wartime listeners.

Which other Lucille Fletcher radio thriller was remade as a famous 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone?

The Hitch-Hiker follows a driver who keeps seeing the same roadside stranger on a trip across America. Fletcher took the idea from a real road trip with her husband.

Which composer of the Psycho score was married to Lucille Fletcher when she wrote Sorry, Wrong Number?

Bernard Herrmann met her at the radio network where both worked, and they married in 1939 after her parents' objections delayed them for years. He did not score the film; they divorced the year it opened.

Which device, absent from the radio play, fills in the couple's past in the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number?

Flashbacks, some nested inside others, stretch a half-hour play into a film about three times as long. One critic of the day found the layers convoluted even as he raved about the final reel.

Which former circus acrobat plays Mrs. Stevenson's husband in the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number?

Burt Lancaster was two years on from his screen debut, and this was his third picture for producer Hal Wallis. Wallis had signed him before he had appeared in a single film.

Which Kyiv-born director made both The Snake Pit and the film of Sorry, Wrong Number in 1948?

Anatole Litvak steered the leading ladies of both pictures to Best Actress nominations in the same year. He was nominated himself as Best Director for The Snake Pit.

Which actress, in a role without a single spoken line, beat the star of Sorry, Wrong Number to the Best Actress Oscar?

Jane Wyman won for Johnny Belinda, playing a deaf woman who never speaks. The first radio voice of Mrs. Stevenson was in that cast too, and earned a supporting nomination.

What first name does the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number give Mrs. Stevenson, a tycoon's spoiled daughter?

Leona is the name the screenplay gives her; on radio she is only ever Mrs. Elbert Stevenson. The film also invents her father, her college years and the friend whose sweetheart she took.

The husband called Elbert in the radio play Sorry, Wrong Number is renamed what in the 1948 film?

Henry is a poor young man when the heiress takes him from a college friend and marries him against her father's wishes. On radio the husband is never heard; the film makes him a co-star.

What kind of business made the fortune of Mrs. Stevenson's father in the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number?

A drug company bearing the family name employs her husband, who is bored by the job and starts stealing its chemicals to sell through a gangster. That sideline is what lands him in debt.

What does a New York specialist conclude about Mrs. Stevenson's heart trouble in the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number?

It is psychosomatic, the doctor decides: nothing is physically wrong, and what she needs is psychiatric help. He gave her husband that verdict ten days earlier, and the husband kept it from her.

Where is the abandoned house at which the husband holds a mysterious meeting in the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number?

Staten Island is where an old college friend trails the husband to a derelict house with a chemist's name on the sign. The house is later destroyed and a gangster arrested, though the chemist gets away.

In the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number, what does the number left for reaching Mrs. Stevenson's husband turn out to be?

The city morgue answers when she dials the number, passed on by a chemist mixed up in her husband's crimes. By then the debt behind the whole scheme no longer needs paying.

Clips from the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number were spliced into which 1982 Steve Martin comedy?

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid cuts new black-and-white footage of Steve Martin into scenes from 19 vintage films, so its detective seems to share the screen with the stars of the 1940s.

Which Mystery Writers of America prize did a radio production of Sorry, Wrong Number win in 1960?

Edgar Award statuettes are named for Edgar Allan Poe, and this one honoured the script as best radio drama, seventeen years after it was first heard.