SORRY, WRONG NUMBER (1948)

Adapted for the screen by Lucille Fletcher from her own radio play, SORRY, WRONG NUMBER is the mildly interesting story of an obnoxiously pampered woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who is bedridden and home alone in her gigantic NYC mansion.  When the film opens, Stanwyck is desperately tying to get her husband (Burt Lancaster) on the phone.  While talking to the operator, she gets a crossed connection and overhears two seedy-sounding guys planning a murder for that very night at 11:15 pm, when a passing train would hide any screams.  Startled by this conversation, she calls the police, but does a terrible job of convincing them of anything.  After that we're shown numerous flashbacks, even flashbacks within a flashbacks of how she met her husband.

Stanwyck is the spoiled daughter of a wealthy businessman.  Burt was a dirt poor drug store employee.  But she didn't care.  She wanted him and she always got what she wanted.  Almost forced into marriage, Burt is now extremely bitter and full of secrets.  Could some of these secrets be connected to the mysterious conversation Barbara heard earlier?

I wasn't expecting SORRY, WRONG NUMBER to be a film noir, but I'm pretty sure it is.  Lots of deep shadows, low lighting, sinister-feeling camera angles, corrupt characters, doomed situations, etc.  The story is very dated now, but it's still entertaining.  Also, I felt very little sympathy for Barbara's character (she created this entire situation with her selfish cruelty).  Maybe that was the writer's intention?  As it is though, SWN is a good film.  And I'm always happy to see Stanwyck and Lancaster, although I do wish they had more scenes together.

Recommended for classic movie fans.

Joyce Compton in a uncredited appearance.

CITY FOR CONQUEST (1940)

Hum.  Despite the fact CITY FOR CONQUEST came in TCM's "Greatest Gangster Films" DVD collection and the title implies that there's a conquest of a city going on, CITY FOR CONQUEST isn't a gangster film.  There are a few gangster's involved around the edges of the story, but the main story is about a simple man (James Cagney) who is in love with his childhood sweetheart (Ann Sheridan) and she with him.  Unfortunately, she has stars in her eyes and dreams of being a famous dancer with her name in lights.  Cagney has a knack for boxing but he doesn't want anything to do with it, but once it becomes apparent that the only way to make his girl happy is to make some dough he agrees to do some professional boxing.  At the same time, Ann is being lured into the clutches of dance floor stud Anthony Quinn.

There were a few moments that I really enjoyed CFC (the big fight, all the early tough guy scenes with Cagney), but for me the story was just too sappy and predictable.  There was a hobo/guardian angel character who did an intro, outro and a few commentaries in between that could have been completely left out since all he did was treat the audience like we were fucking idiots.  The whole thing about Cagney's sensitive friend (Arthur Kennedy) was forced and slowed down the story.  Also, the results of the big fight were so telegraphed that when it finally happened I had zero emotional feelings towards it.  Actually I kinda felt negative about Cagney since not only is Quinn making him look like a pussy by openly womanizing Sheridan, but now he's allowing the other boxing team to openly cheat and cause him great bodily harm!  Fuck that shit!

Good cast and a nice story idea that's severely hampered by a poor script.  According to Cagney's autobiography what they filmed was much better than the severely edited finished product.  Also, he was so disappointed in CITY FOR CONQUEST that he write a personal apology letter to the source material's author, Aben Kandel.

Not really worth watching.  Skip it.