Imagine you’re a neurotic, bedridden housewife. You’re not going anywere, so you pick up the phone to call a friend and, lo and behold, since it’s 1948 and fiber optics haven’t been perfected yet, you accidently hear two men talking on the crossed telephone wires. You’re kinda bored, so you listen in. To your horror, they’re plotting a murder–and one of the dudes sounds suspiciously like your hubby, Burt Lancaster. Left alone with your overactive imagination, and underactive body, you begin to get very, very scared. Maybe they were talking about … you? Barbara Stanwyck did such a superb job working through the preceding acting exercise in Anatole Litvak’s film, Sorry, Wrong Number, she landed an Academy Award nomination for her work. The story was so successful in its original form as a taut, radio thriller that its author, Lucille Fletcher, expanded and adapted it herself for the big screen. Catch this masterpiece, the last in the Second Chance Classics series this season, at Carolina Theatre’s Fletcher Hall on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 16 and 17. See “Special Showings” for details.
