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171 Ordeal for Oscar Sorry,฀Wrong฀Number Because Stanwyck never worked at one studio for long, she never had studio backing in the annual Oscar race, and so she went home empty-handed four times, the last time for a movie version Sorry,฀Wrong฀ Number, an expanded adaptation of Lucille Fletcher’s well-known radio play. Stanwyck made no bones about her disappointment at not winning an Oscar. When she lost in 1937 for Stella฀Dallas, she was quoted as saying, “I put my life’s blood into that one. I should have won.” Certainly she should have won over that year’s winner, Luise Rainer, for her mostly silent, victimized Chinese wife in The฀Good฀Earth. But Greta Garbo never won an Oscar either, and I’d probably give it to her for her career-best work in Camille฀that same year. Stanwyck’s 1941 nomination for Ball฀of฀Fire was a surprise and must be counted as a nod for her work in The฀Lady฀Eve, too. She lost to Joan Fontaine in Suspicion, an uncertain performance that was rewarded to make up for passing over Fontaine’s far superior work in Rebecca฀the previous year. At least Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson lost to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight (1944), a performance that was at the very least competitive and given by an actress who was in the same league, talent-wise, as Stanwyck. Stanwyck’s work in Sorry,฀Wrong฀Number strikes me as an attempt to do something the Oscar voters might like, for the showy role of bedridden neurotic Leona Stevenson calls for something more along the lines of the scenery-chewing style of a Bette Davis or a Joan Crawford than it does Stanwyck’s best life-or-death realness. She lost to Jane Wyman’s sweet, victimized deaf mute in Johnny฀Belinda (1948), the polar opposite of Stanwyck’s strident Leona, who mostly victimizes herself. If I had my druthers, I’d give Stanwyck an Oscar for Ladies฀of฀Leisure in 1930 (Norma o r d e a l f o r o s C a r 172 Shearer could definitely do without her award for The฀Divorcee), and another for The฀Lady฀Eve in 1941. As for her high-pressure work in Wrong฀ Number, I’m glad she didn’t win for this atypical, sloppy picture; it’s not at all representative of her talent, her artistry, or her overall style. Agnes Moorehead began her career in radio with Orson Welles, and she started her film career with him in Citizen฀Kane (1941), playing the mother of the future tycoon. She also appeared in Welles’s The฀Magnificent ฀Ambersons (1942) as the hysterical Aunt Fanny, one of the greatest performances in film history. Moorehead is huge and histrionic in Ambersons , but she makes us painfully aware that Aunt Fanny herself knows about her own self-indulgent shortcomings and can’t do a thing about them. That awareness, too, is key to her performance in the radio version of Sorry,฀Wrong฀Number, first broadcast on a show called Suspense฀on May 25, 1943, and then reprised on the radio, by popular demand, seven times before 1960. Fletcher’s play runs a little over twenty minutes, and it makes spooky use of telephone sounds; every dial tone and rotary click ups the chiller ante. Moorehead’s original performance in 1943 is her most human and relatable; she emphasized the shrewish nature of Leona as she continued to perform the role over the next twenty years, but she usually began on a quietly whiny note, as if Leona talks just to hear herself speak. Her voice sounds thin, like a querulous spinster’s, and she scolds her interlocutors like a prim spinster would after accidentally overhearing a murder plan over a crossed telephone wire. Leona is given to telling everyone that her health has been poor for twelve years (so that we quickly suspect she’s suffering more from a psychosomatic or psychological ailment), and she is easily flustered, a weakness that will be her ultimate downfall. Her thin voice rises up to high, fluting tones when Leona gets imperious; Moorehead excitingly adds some quivers to her middle register as Leona starts to get scared (the best, or at least the most virtuosic, performance she gave of this play was the one she did in 1945). When she calls the police, they reason with her, but she hangs up on them, and then says, “Why did I...

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