Simply A Masterpiece

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Boring and predictable are two words that are never associated with Alfred Hitchcock, but "The Wrong Man" is both.The story never catches fire, the acting is flat and drones on and on. Once the crime is revealed, early on, you know exactly how the case will proceed and how it will be resolved.You keep waiting for a twist or a reaction from the lead character, but you get nothing but more bleh...Anything else by Hitchcock would be better...

If you've read any of the biographies about Alfred Hitchcock at all, you know of his fear of being locked up and his distrust of the police. This film is the perfect manifestation of those fears and, ironically, it's based on a true story. In fact, the movie opens with the director's shadowed figure speaking "what you are about to hear is absolutely true", or words to that effect, in lieu of his typical cameo.Based on the novel by Maxwell Anderson, this last effort by screenwriter Angus MacPhail, whose other feature length adaptation for the director was Spellbound (1945), tells the story of Manny Balestrero, a musician and family man who was incorrectly identified by witnesses as an armed robber.Sandwiched between his last two (of four) collaborations with James Stewart, Hitchcock uses Henry Fonda, for the first and only time, to tell this real-life noir drama. The film also marks the first of the two Hitchcock films with Vera Miles, who would go on to play Janet Leigh's concerned sister in Psycho (1960).Harold Stone and Charles Cooper play the police lieutenant and detective who, based on identifications from several women robbery victims, arrest and then process Balestrero (Fonda) through to jail - the film's most memorable scenes. Nehemiah Persoff plays Manny's brother-in-law, who comes up with the bail.The story then shifts somewhat to a focus on Manny's wife Rose (Miles), who begins to suffer a mental breakdown and she blames herself for what's happened to her husband. Anthony Quayle, who plays the inexperienced, yet competent defense council that the Balestreros hire, advises Manny to have his wife see a doctor (Werner Klemperer), and eventually she's institutionalized.A thirteen year old Tuesday Weld appears, uncredited in her first film, as a giggling girl that the Balestreros come across while trying to find witnesses for his defense.The subplot of Rose's collapse notwithstanding, the film is still pretty good even with its hokey ending, then again it's based on a true story.

A Kafkaesque narrative, based on a story that actually happened, starring the highly expressive and excellent Henry Fonda along with a very good, and particularly beautiful Vera Miles alongside him. The classic theme: a man wrongfully accused, his trial and tribulations, and the lingering question, seemingly forever - is he even really innocent at all ? What a man can lose when he is being convicted, often far more than just material loss. His perseverance in this personal battle against what seems to be the entire world. The glimmers of hope, the devastating news, and Fonda's character's world that seems to come apart bit by bit, something almost of a Job's parallel from the Bible.Very well made, constantly compelling and suspenseful in its own way. And an ending worthwhile.

Manny Balestrero makes a living as a bassist at a New York club; the money isn't great but he, his wife Rose and their two children get by. Then Rose needs some dental work so Manny goes to cash in an insurance policy… and that is where is troubles begin; the woman who serves him thinks he looks like the man who robbed the place recently; she tells her co-workers and they agree with her. He is arrested just before he gets home and taken to the police station. At first he is more concerned about letting his wife know what has happened than anything else… after all it is a case of misidentification and will soon be sorted out. Unfortunately things aren't sorted, far from it. He is taken to the sites of two other robberies where the victims also identify him. He is quickly charged, processed and remanded to jail. Luckily he is soon bailed and employs lawyer Frank O'Connor. As the trial approaches Manny and Rose try to find witnesses that can confirm that Manny couldn't have done it; the first two they discover has since died and Rose has a breakdown; blaming herself for their predicament. She is taken to a sanatorium while Manny faces trial alone.Alfred Hitchcock made plenty of films about people caught up in crime, but as his introduction states, this is unusual because it is based on real events… knowing this, but not knowing details of the case, made this tenser than it would have been otherwise. Aspects of the story would appear unlikely in a work of fiction; most notably the way some witnesses are allowed to confer and others are primed to expect the robber. Henry Fonda is on great form as Manny and Anthony Quayle impresses as Frank O'Connor but is Vera Miles who stands out as Rose as she suffers a breakdown. As one might expect Hitchcock does a great job keeping the story gripping and using many of the actual locations rather than film sets. As the story progresses it is hard not to feel a sense of injustice and wonder how many other people like Manny there must be. Overall I'd certainly recommend this less well known Hitchcock film.