365+ movies in 365 Days: Day 166 - Alfred Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man"

The Wrong Man is considered by many to be a lesser Hitchcock film and an odd choice for the director who interrupted a string of big budget color pictures to make this film. Many believe the film's serious tone, b&w photography and non-fiction story set it apart from the rest of Hitchcock's work. It is not one of the director's more famous films and I admit that it has sat on my DVD shelf for years and I have not watched it.

After viewing it I can say that the film, though unique because of it's true story background, is a perfect fit into the Hitchcock legacy. If you look at the work that came before and after, you can see how Hitchcock used the story of this unfortunate man to explore his favorite themes.

The movie tells the story about Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero, a husband, father and musician at NYC's Stork Club. "Manny", as he is known to those close to him, is played by Henry Fonda. His wife Rose is played by Vera Miles.

Manny is beset by money troubles. He goes to the life insurance company to borrow on his wife's policy and there he is identified as the man who has robbed the place on two prior occasions. The police are called and Manny is implicated in other local robberies. He is taken in for questioning and as the circumstantial evidence mounts up, he is swallowed by the New York City penal system. He is put on trial for these crimes and the stress of the ordeal causes his wife to have a mental breakdown. Even after he is exonerated her recovery will be a long, hard road.

The film features many of the signature Hitchcock touches that are so subtle we barely notice them. The high and low camera angles, the seamless moving from exteriors to interiors. There is a shot where a jail cell door closes on Manny and the camera moves through a small slot in the door, to the interior of the cell. The most famous shot is where the camera revolves around Manny the first night he is incarcerated. It's not done to show that his thoughts are spinning out of control, but that events around him are in chaos. Another great shot is a close up of Manny praying super-imposed over a man walk down the street, towards the camera. As he gets closer his head films the frame in a double exposure with Manny, then the Manny images fades and we are now looking at the "right" man who looks a lot like Manny Balestrero. The film is notable for it's great period cinematography and for establishing a real sense of what life was like in NYC in the mid-1950's. Hitchcock seamlessly blended footage of NYC locations with Hollywood sound stages so well that many assume the entire film was made on location in New York. Martin Scorsese has mentioned the film as a big influence when he made Taxi Driver.

The Wrong Man features strong performances by the leads. Henry Fonda becomes Manny Balestrero and Vera Miles performance as a woman descending into madness is so subtle it's superb. One can only wonder what Vertigo would have been like if she had played the lead role. 

The film offers a unique look at the justice system prior to the rules impacting defendants rights put in place in the 1960's. We see that the entire system is stacked against Manny. He is presumed guilty by the police. Manny is not allowed to make a phone call. He is coerced into performing identification walks and completing handwriting comparisons. Line-ups are done in groups so witnesses influence each other. Many of his statements are later twisted and used as evidence against him by police.

In Addition to The Wrong Man Henry Fonda made two other films exploring the rights of defendants in the legal system. The most famous is Twelve Angry Men (1957), which he also produced, and Gideon's Trumpet (1980), a made for TV movie about the 1965 Gideon vs. Wainwright ruling that defendants have the right to council.

Chaos interuppting daily life is one of the themes Hitchcock explores in The Wrong Man. He studied the dynamic of a marriage under stress and a family impacted by events beyond their control in The Man Who Knew Too Much, the movie he made before The Wrong Man. He also explored the them of chaos and family in Sabotage, Shadow Of A Doubt, The Trouble With Harry and The Birds.

Other themes explored are:
The Innocent Man (or Woman) - One of Hitchcock's favorites. An innocent person is plunged into events beyond his control and must prove their innocence's, often while in mortal peril or possessing information they must communicate. The 39 Steps, Young and Innocent, Saboteur, Spellbound, Stage Fright, Strangers On A Train, I Confess, Dial M For Murder, To Catch A Thief, North By Northwest and Frenzy

Ordinary Man (Woman) - In addition to a person wrongfully accused of a crime, Hitchcock liked to explore the themes of ordinary people faced with extraordinary situations. This theme occurs in almost all of his films including; The Lady Vanishes, Lifeboat, Shadow Of A Doubt, Rear Window, The Man Who knew Too Much, Psycho, The Birds and Marnie. Often the ordinary innocent person is implicated through another Hitchcock theme, mistaken identity, as seen in The Wrong Man.

Love and Obsession - The end of The Wrong Man, when Manny comforts Rose in the psychiatric ward and she is non-responsive, is a mirror image of a scene that will come in his next movie Vertigo. Driven to madness by love and obsession James Stewart as Scotty ends up in a mental hospital, Madge, played by Barbara Bel Geddes tries to comfort him, to no avail. Hitchcock explored love and obsession in Rebecca, Suspicion, Notorious, The Paradine Case, I Confess, Marnie, Psycho and it is the central theme of his greatest film, Vertigo.

The film is Hitchcock's most serious film. He originally planned his traditional cameo appearance in the cafe scene that comes after the movie opens, but instead, to maintain the tone of the film, he appears before the opening credits to introduce the film. With The Wrong Man Hitchcock proved that real life can be scarier than anything a scriptwriter could dream up.

At The Movie House rating **** stars.

Other Films of Interest:

The Fugitive
I Confess
Witness For the Prosecution
Dial M For Murder
Madeleine
Reversal of Fortune
Presumed Innocent