Sorry, wrong number

Bedridden, the wayward and irritable daughter of the wealthy pharmaceutical baron James Cotterell ( Ed Begley ) named Leon Stevenson ( Barbara Stanwick ) let go of the servants for the weekend and was left alone in her chic New York apartment. Waiting for her delayed husband Henry ( Bert Lancaster ), Leon is trying to reach him at work, but the line is constantly busy. In a troubled state, she requires a telephone operator to connect her with her husband, but by mistake she is connected to someone else's conversation in which two men discuss a plan to kill a woman at 11.15, when a train passes over the bridge near the house. Worried Leon asks the operator girl to trace where the call came from, but she refuses. The police also show no interest in her too vague information. As a result, Leone still manages to contact her husband's secretary, who reports that Henry went to dinner with a beautiful blonde named Sally Lord ( Anne Richards ), and has not returned since. Leona recognizes Sally's phone and calls her, but she does not want to talk with her husband, and goes out to the city to call her back from the telephone box. Waiting for a call back, Leona remembers Sally, whose Hunt's maiden name is:

When Sally dances with Henry at a student ball, but Leon unceremoniously breaks up their couple and takes Henry away. From this moment, Leon puts into circulation a beautiful, but simple in origin Henry, who dropped out of college due to lack of funds. Ignoring Sally's sensual confession of love for Henry, Leon decides to marry him herself. Her authoritarian father James Cotterrell is against this marriage, but eventually gives up after Leona’s next hysteria, and then takes him to work in his company, eventually appointing him vice president without any responsibilities. Shortly after the wedding, Henry realizes that Leon uses the money and position of his father for complete control over his life, tightly imposing his will on him.

Leona’s recollection of her former rival is interrupted by a call from Sally, who reports that her husband, whose name is Fred Hunt ( Leif Erickson ), who works in the district attorney’s office, is investigating Henry. Sally says that, having accidentally heard about this, she decided to find out what was the matter, and for this she followed Fred, who, together with two investigators, went to an abandoned house on Staten Island. When meeting with Henry at dinner, Sally tried to warn him about the investigation, but in a severe upset, he suddenly left the table and disappeared. After a while, Sally called Leone back for more information - the house on Staten Island was burned to the ground, three people were arrested during that operation, and that all this was somehow connected with the Cotterella company.

Leona receives a telegram in which Henry informs her that he is leaving on business to another city for the whole weekend. Upon hearing the train passing over the bridge, Leon begins to suspect that people on the phone could discuss her murder. In desperation, she calls her doctor, Dr. Alexandre ( Wendell Corey ), who tells her that ten days ago, Henry inquired from him about her state of health. The narrative is interrupted by Henry's recollection of Leona's disease:

Six months after the wedding, Henry refused to go to dinner with Leon, because he made an appointment with a promising employer because he was depressed by his work at Cotterella's company. Leon demanded that he continue to work in the company of his father, but when he refused, a quarrel began between them, leading to a heart attack in Leon. Henry became even more embittered after his father-in-law, using his influence, blocked his opportunity to get a job in some other company, and Leon continued to humiliate him. Leona's heart attacks began to recur regularly, and, in the end, she was confined to bed. Although Dr. Alexander determined that Leona had no heart disease and all of her health problems, Leona was exclusively psychological in nature, Henry asks the doctor not to tell her about this yet. After that meeting, Alexander did not see Henry again.

Then Leone calls Valdo Evans ( Harold Vermiglia ), one of the leading chemists at the Cotterella factory, talking about working with Henry:

Angry at his position, Henry seeks independence and quick enrichment. He persuades Evans, who wants to buy a retirement house in the UK, forge Cotterell company records and sell unaccounted for drugs to a shadow trader named Morano ( William Conrad ). For seven months, their illegal business was successful, but then Evans was transferred to work at the company's factory in New Jersey. From that moment on, Henry decided to do business with Evans without Morano, selling drugs directly from his home on Staten Island. Enraged by their betrayal, Morano found Henry and Evans and demanded 200 thousand dollars from them and all the medicines in the warehouse, otherwise threatening to kill them. When Henry replied that he had no money, Morano suggested that Henry pay him out of Leona's insurance, which, according to him, should die soon. Henry was forced to agree, but Leon did not die, and Morano refused to defer Henry's payment of money. Morano was arrested during a raid on Staten Island's house, but Evans set fire to it, destroying all the evidence.

At 11.00, someone breaks into her apartment of Leona, at the same time Henry calls her from New Haven. Initially, he is unlocked from any criminal activity, but when Leon tells him that Morano is arrested, Henry begins to panic. In tears, Leon apologizes to Henry for humiliating him, and Henry, who ordered her murder, desperately urges her to immediately go to the window and call for help. However, Leon is unable to get out of bed, and as soon as she hangs up, they kill her. Henry, who is about to be arrested, calls Leone again. The killer picks up the phone, and when Henry asks to call his wife to the phone, he replies: "Sorry, the number was wrong."

For her role in this film, Stanwick was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress.

For the screenplay, Lucille Fletcher was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Prize and the Writers Guild of America Award ^[3] .

• Sorry, wrong number on IMDb website  
• Sorry, wrong number on Allmovie website