Sorry Wrong Number - Starring Agnes Moorehead
Recently I sent out a message asking for people to nominate their favorite old-time-radio episode of all time. I'm in the process of putting this together into a list, but in the meantime I wanted to put up one of the shows that popped up time and time again. It is an episode of Suspense called Sorry Wrong Number and it stars the wonderful Agnes Moorehead.
It is understandable why so many people mentioned this as being one of their favorites as it really is a true classic of the genre. If I remember rightly Orson Welles himself once referred to it as the best radio script of all time. Quite an accolade coming from a man who himself was responsible for several of the most memorable shows of that era.
It's a very dramatic and tense story about an invalid woman called Mrs Stevenson, who is all alone at home and trying desperately to contact her husband by telephone. When she contacts the operator to connect her she accidentally overhears a very worrying conversation. I won't tell you anymore as I don't want to spoil the story.
It was originally broadcast on the 25th May 1943 and repeated many times thereafter by popular request.
Sorry Wrong Number was written by the talented scriptwriter Lucille Fletcher who was a regular writer of Suspense shows. The idea for the story apparently had a more personal history. The story, which won a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award, was sparked by Ms. Fletcher's encounter with a spoiled socialite. The woman had treated Ms. Fletcher badly in a market, and subsequently she returned home to script a vicarious sort of revenge, plotting the torment and demise of her antagonist as the lead character of the thriller.
Sorry Wrong Number was made into a film by Paramount Pictures in 1948 starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster and was portrayed by LUX Radio Theater for radio on the 9th of January 1950 and can also be heard on RUSC at the following link: LUX Radio Theater - Sorry Wrong Number.
But it is the original version starring Agnes Moorehead that stands out in the memory of old-time-radio fans. As one member of RUSC said:
“An absolutely gripping performance by Ms Moorehead.
Essentially it was a “one man” show, which must have
required an enormous amount of energy to maintain the
level of emotion required. It’s a program I share with
anyone who expresses any interest in Old Time Radio.
No one has been disappointed yet.
And I can guarantee that you will not be disappointed either! You will find it on RUSC today. Here's the link: Suspense - Sorry Wrong Number.
Happy listening my friends,
