I've never heard the legendary radio broadcast (featuring Agnes Moorehead in what has been described as basically a one-woman tour de force) but it had to be better than the overblown movie version, which today emerges with all the entertainment value of a film noir telemarketing call.
Basic plot rips long arm of coincidence out of its socket--screechy self-centered invalid is accidentally patched into phone call where she overhears two men plotting a murder--her own! (What are the odds?)
Then, to expand this flimsy premise to feature-length, a badly-cast Barbara Stanwyck (who appears so robust she looks like she should be out stringing wire on telephone poles herself) engages in a series of frantic phone calls that all invariably end up with person on other end of line drifting into a lengthy, often confusing, flashback. (Or, even more baffling, flashbacks within flashbacks.) Corny, dated, way over-acted. . .and by far one of Stanwyck's worst--and most over-rated (an Oscar nomination for this hysterical performance?)--roles.
Worse yet, rarely very suspenseful, although some viewers will doubtless be on edge of seats waiting for the annoying heroine to get her come-uppance. On other hand, frequently funnier than a call to Dial-A-Joke, especially when Stanwyck (one of the strongest film actresses of that era) repeatedly, and unconvincingly, bellows "I'm a sick woman!" into the phone at top her of lungs.
Basic plot rips long arm of coincidence out of its socket--screechy self-centered invalid is accidentally patched into phone call where she overhears two men plotting a murder--her own! (What are the odds?)
Then, to expand this flimsy premise to feature-length, a badly-cast Barbara Stanwyck (who appears so robust she looks like she should be out stringing wire on telephone poles herself) engages in a series of frantic phone calls that all invariably end up with person on other end of line drifting into a lengthy, often confusing, flashback. (Or, even more baffling, flashbacks within flashbacks.) Corny, dated, way over-acted. . .and by far one of Stanwyck's worst--and most over-rated (an Oscar nomination for this hysterical performance?)--roles.
Worse yet, rarely very suspenseful, although some viewers will doubtless be on edge of seats waiting for the annoying heroine to get her come-uppance. On other hand, frequently funnier than a call to Dial-A-Joke, especially when Stanwyck (one of the strongest film actresses of that era) repeatedly, and unconvincingly, bellows "I'm a sick woman!" into the phone at top her of lungs.