The Wrong Man
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles Cooper, Kippy Campbell, Laurinda Barrett, Lola D'Annunzio, Norma ConnollyPrimary Contributor: Henry Fonda
Primary Contributor: Vera Miles
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Italian (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of The Wrong Man
Movie Review: Good
Summary: 3 Stars
Alfred Hitchcock was the consummate Hollywood director, in that his films had high production values, big name stars, were immaculately composed and scored- usually by Bernard Herrmann, as in this film, yet they also tended to lack heart, or real human emotion. They were all basically plot-driven vehicles that usually had twist endings, that stretched the bounds of the reasonable. In a way he was the M. Night Shyamalan of his day, except that he was a far superior filmmaker in every way. Every so often, however, he would try his hand at a different style of film, like Mr. And Mrs. Smith, Jamaica Inn, and Under Capricorn.
Perhaps his most successful such `oddball' film was 1956's black and white social realism film The Wrong Man, starring Henry Fonda, which was manifestly influenced by the spate of European films that indulged in the Neo-Realistic style of such masters as Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, and Roberto Rossellini, and based upon a real life case of mistaken identity in 1953 which nearly put an innocent man in prison. This film's veracity was so important to Hitchcock that he did not dare make one of his comic cameo appearances within the film, rather we only see him opening the film on a dark soundstage, and in shadow, as he intones the setup. Yet, in a sense, the film is more of a classic film noir, based in reality, than a Neo-Realistic film, based in Hollywood, even as it is shorn of the usual Hitchcockian plot twists and MacGuffins. The film was penned by Angus MacPhail and playwright Maxwell Anderson, and was based upon Anderson's non-fiction novel called The True Story Of Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero, which preceded Truman Capote's non-fiction novel In Cold Blood by a decade. It is a very good film, yet it never quite soars into greatness, for a number of manifest reasons.
For a film that has been called Hitchcock's stab at Neo-Realism, a bit less artifice would have been more suited. The Wrong Man, however, is a very good film, even if it is clearly a flawed and second tier film of Hitchcock's, despite its noble attempts at more. It's not a thriller, but a character study- of Manny, Rose, and even the mores of mid-Twentieth Century New York City, with images that do not rhapsodize the city as in Woody Allen's Manhattan does, but show the city as a sort of indifferent beast. Despite its flaws, The Wrong Man has good performances, technical kudos, and great touches that stick in the viewer's mind long after it ends; such as the rote and unwavering way the female witnesses identify the real robber, then are ashamed to look at Manny as they leave, an early shot of Manny leaving The Stork Club, bracketed between two cops as he walks away, or his recalling the cop car in front of his house when he is let out on bail and sees an empty spot in the street. These are the things that show that a great artist, even when not at his best, is still better than most non-great artists at their best. And that's the sort of claim for which no twist ending is needed.
Summary of The Wrong Man
Manny Ballestero is an honest hardworking musician at New York's Stork Club. When his wife needs money for dental treatment, Manny goes to the local insurance office to borrow on her policy. Employees at the office mistake him for a hold-up man who robbed them the year before and the police are called. The film tells the true story of what happened to Manny and his family.Alfred Hitchcock was fond of telling the story about how his father discouraged his son from even the slightest criminal impulse by having young Alfred locked in a police holding cell for a brief period--a terrifying experience Hitchcock never forgot. Much of the fear from that childhood incident resonates through The Wrong Man, which is unique among Hitchcock's films in that it is based entirely on a factual case that occurred in New York City in January 1953. As Hitchcock states in a shadowy prologue, authenticity was his primary goal--including the use of actual names and locations from the case--and the film gains considerable power from Hitchcock's semi-documentary approach (a film noir style that was still in vogue when Hitchcock shot this film in 1957).
Henry Fonda is perfectly cast as the financially struggling nightclub musician who is mistakenly identified as a robber when he attempts to cash in his wife's life-insurance policy to pay for her much-needed dental work. Vera Miles is equally superb as the suffering wife, who ultimately cracks under the pressure of her husband's wrongful accusation and the drawn-out process of proving his innocence. Through all of this, Hitchcock pays close attention to the mundane details of police procedure, intensifying Fonda's desperation and the narrative tension that was Hitchcock's directorial trademark. As it happens, the strict adherence to factual detail--no matter how absurd or incredible--also renders The Wrong Man somewhat weaker than Hitchcock's classic plots, since in this case truth is decidedly stranger than fiction. Nevertheless, this is still a riveting film that fits quite nicely alongside Hitchcock's better-known films of the 1950s. (Interesting trivia: Miles--who would later appear in Psycho, was Hitchcock's first choice for the Kim Novak role in Vertigo, and Hitchcock was vocally annoyed when Miles's pregnancy prevented her from taking the role that could have made her a star.) --Jeff Shannon
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