The Wrong Man (1956)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Maxwell Anderson (screenplay) and
Angus MacPhail (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

23 December 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Mystery

Tagline:

The police were convinced... The witnesses were positive ...Yet he was... THE WRONG MAN

Plot:

True story of an innocent man mistaken for a criminal.

Plot Keywords:

Musician | Trial | Robbery | Insurance | Mistaken Identity

Cast

Henry Fonda	...	Christopher Emanuel 'Manny' Balestrero
Vera Miles	...	Rose Balestrero
Anthony Quayle	...	Frank D. O'Connor
Harold J. Stone	...	Detective Lt. Bowers
Charles Cooper	...	Detective Matthews
John Heldabrand	...	Tomasini
Esther Minciotti	...	Mama Balestrero
Doreen Lang	...	Ann James
Laurinda Barrett	...	Constance Willis
Norma Connolly	...	Betty Todd
Nehemiah Persoff	...	Eugene 'Gene' Conforti
Lola D'Annunzio	...	Olga Conforti, Manny's Sister
Kippy Campbell	...	Robert Balestrero
Robert Essen	...	Gregory Balestrero
Richard Robbins	...	Daniel, the guilty man

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian | Spanish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | UK:A (1957) | UK:PG (1988) | Brazil:16 | Canada:14A (video rating) | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | France:U (re-release) | Peru:14 | USA:Approved (PCA #18117) | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

5th Avenue subway station, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The Victor Moore Arcade was torn down in the late 1990s as part of a project to build a new transport hub.

Goofs:

Continuity: Manny walks in the corridor of the prison carrying the pillow with nothing on it. When he is inside the cell a cannikin appears on the pillow.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Prologue narrator: This is Alfred Hitchcock speaking. In the past, I have given you many kinds of suspense pictures. But this time, I would like you to see a different one. The difference lies in the fact that this is a true story, every word of it. And yet it contains elements that are stranger than all the fiction that has gone into many of the thrillers that I've made before.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Guilt Trip: Hitchcock and 'The Wrong Man' (2004) (V)

Unexpected jewel from the Master

This is a terrific, dark, taut thriller from Hitchcock, based on a true story. Not his usual ostentatious style, but it plays on the theme of a wrong man caught up in extraordinary events beyond his control (REAR WINDOW, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, PSYCHO).

It may be Hitchcock's most cynical film. Henry Fonda plays a man falsely accused of armed robbery. He is a quiet man, whose life gets turned upside down as a result.

Hitchcock spares us nothing of the horror of the predicament of Fonda's situation. He shows many of the details of how Fonda is accused, arrested, and tried in real time, so we are as fully worn down as the protagonist.

The plot was quite unbelievable by 1950s standards that Hitch needed all the realism he could muster. For example, Hitchcock himself introduces the film in a prologue, to verify that it is indeed based on a true story. Also, don't look for his trademark cameo - he did shoot a scene where he was a customer in a store, but that scene ended up getting cut. Hitchcock personally interviewed all of the participants in the real live drama. And the doctor at the sanitarium is played not by an actor, but by a real doctor.