Writer: Lucille Fletcher
Composer: Franz Waxman
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, Harold Vermilyea, Ed Begley, Leif Erickson, William Conrad, John Bromfield, Jimmy Hunt, Dorothy Neuman, Paul Fierro
More info: IMDb
Tagline: She overheard the plans for her own destruction!
Plot: Leona Stevenson is sick and confined to her bed. One night, whilst waiting for her husband to return home, she picks up the phone and accidentally overhears a conversation between two men planning a murder. She becomes increasingly desperate as she tries to work out who the victim is so the crime can be prevented.
My rating: 6.5/10
Will I watch it again? Maybe.
OK, so I'm watching this picture and it's annoying me...like all crazy like with the tennis match of characters giving an awful lot of exposition. Then you've got Stanwyck on a freak out/screaming binge that lasts several minutes. I wanted to shut it off for a while to get that shrill out of my head. Geez, was that annoying. That's mostly the first half of the picture. That's the bad news. The good news is that the second half is pretty damn good and it's got one of the best endings I've ever seen. HOLY SHIT!!! WOW!!! It's worth sitting through the discomforting first half to get to that finale moment. I'm shocked. I'm flummoxed. Somebody just hit me upside the head with the WTF stick. It is a good thriller except for that first half that really threw me of. The ending is so good that I went from knowing I'd never watch it again to at least giving it another chance someday. And the buildup in the last ten minutes is pretty damn tense. I'm really surprised that Paramount had the balls to do it. Just. WOW!
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