Du lebst noch 105 Minuten (1948)
60KDu lebst noch 105 Minuten: Directed by Anatole Litvak. With Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey. While on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a murder plot and attempts to prevent it.
“Chrome-plated hokum, Sorry, Wrong Number works despite itself. And works and works. Starting out as a radio drama by Lucille Fletcher in the 1940s, it boasted umpteen performances plus a 1946 production in the nascent medium of television before Anatole Litvak turned it into film noir. During most of its earlier incarnations, Agnes Moorehead created the role of the hysterical, bedridden heiress, the `cough drop queen,u0026#39; but the film fell into the lap of the First Lady of Film Noir, Barbara Stanwyck. Moorehead was more than a strong enough actress, but Hollywood required a star.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe Irony is that Sorry, Wrong Number is far from her finest hour on screen. Rarely has one been made so aware of Stanwyck `actingu0026#39; in the most unabashedly actressy way. And the same can be said of Burt Lancaster who, when a role didnu0026#39;t set well with him, communicated his discomfort blatantly. In The Rose Tattoo, against Anna Magnani, he was ingratiating and unconvincing ; here, heu0026#39;s almost as awkward as the henpecked husband in whom the worm has at long last turned.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut maybe Fletcheru0026#39;s slice of devilu0026#39;s food cake calls for mannered histrionics. Ensconced in her bedchamber one sweltering Manhattan evening, her pill bottles and her telephone at her elbow, Stanwyck eavesdrops on a sinister conversation a murder is being plotted thanks to a crossed line. This makes her even more restive, and she starts working the phone, tracking down her tardy husband. Litvak `ventilatesu0026#39; these calls, turning them into a series of flashbacks filling in the background to what will prove a very bad evening for Stanwyck. (The sequences on Staten Island, however, could have sprung from the pen of Franklin W. Dixon, the Hardy Boysu0026#39; puppeteer.)u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eUnavoidably talky, owing to its source, Sorry, Wrong Number moves inexorably to its preordained end. Basically, itu0026#39;s a gimmick, and one that Hitchcock might have fine-tuned into a nifty infernal machine. Litvak doesnu0026#39;t do badly, though, and the movieu0026#39;s shock value outlasts its staled conventions. Its most chilling moment comes when Stanwyck frantically dials a number that she thinks will give her solace. But her answer is `BOwery 2-1000 the City Morgue.u0026#39;”
