Directed by Alfred Hitchcock;
Cast: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, & Harold J. Stone
Running time: 105 min.
Rating: unrated

Not as successful upon release as other Hitchcock films, The Wrong Man, nonetheless, employs typical Hitchcockian suspense and danger, while showing impressive restraint in telling the real-life tale of a small-time musician’s wrongful arrest and imprisonment for armed robbery. The film starts off with Hitchcock breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience to explain that the story is based on a real-life case. Taking his cue from the burgeoning influence of European cinema (most notably Italian neo-realism and French new-wave) and wanting to compliment the story’s serious subject matter, the film is less stylized in visualization and plot conception, relying instead on subtle performances by both Henry Fonda – as the titular character – and Hitchcock’s prowess behind the camera. When struggling nightclub musician, Emmanuel Christopher “Manny” Balestrero (Henry Fonda), is accused by several insurance company employees as the man who robbed them in the past, Manny is arrested just steps from entering his house, where his wife and two children wait. The staging is perfect, essentially laying the groundwork of dread and helplessness that will continue throughout. Manny is so close to his home but is picked up and quickly placed in the police car, all the while trying desperately to call his wife to let her know what’s happened. Instead, from inside the car all he sees is her brief silhouette from the window. This is heartrending stuff and not usually evident in Hitchcock films. His films tend to excite the viewer at a visceral level, but here it’s more focused on emotional involvement. This is helped greatly by Fonda performance. He brings subtlety and immense compassion as an everyday man caught in an ever-worsening spiral of misfortune.

Through Manny’s journey into the justice system, Hitchcock focuses his camera on the minute details: the ominous entrance of the police station, the hard shadows of the detectives, the dehumanizing police procedural focused on cataloguing name, address, and Manny’s contents, stripping them of all meaning and intention. He becomes literally a nobody, a man without a home or future. He’s nothing more than an object, something to be prodded, endlessly questioned, handcuffed and moved, like the other inmates. This is beautifully visualized by the increasing use of close-ups, including Manny’s hands locked in handcuffs and his ink-stained fingertips. This point is highlighted again later in the film, during the courtroom scenes, by Hitchcock’s clever use of cutting between Manny and his P.O.V., spotting varying degrees of indifference: detectives mindlessly doodling in their notepads, a spectator more concerned with putting on her makeup, and the judge not trying hard to hide his boredom. After the film’s first half, the narrative suddenly shifts focus to Manny’s wife, Rose (a wonderfully restrained Vera Miles), and her resulting nervous breakdown. Rose’s belief that she’s to blame for letting her husband down spurs her helplessness and results in her mental breakdown, forcing her into an institution. By focussing attention on Manny’s wife, Hitchcock parallels the prison in Rose’s mind to Manny’s literal prison, even going so far as to subtly stage the same blocking as Rose is carted away by her medical staff.

A brilliant experience in minimalist style and big ideas combined in an aesthetic that compliments its baroque subject matter, The Wrong Man is an argument against the indifference of the justice system and, even larger still, the complete loss of hope and identity. Definitely not to be overlooked, it’s a true classic – a simple story just as important in the canon of Hitchcock films as his most famous. A a true testament to Hitchcock’s ability to not only excite but to move. So much for a psychotic knife-wielding mama’s boy, huh?

Richard X
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006