Manny Balestrero
| The Wrong Man | |
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Theatrical film poster
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| Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Produced by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Screenplay by |
Maxwell Anderson Angus MacPhail |
| Based on |
The True Story of Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero by Maxwell Anderson |
| Starring |
Henry Fonda Vera Miles |
| Music by | Bernard Herrmann |
| Cinematography | Robert Burks |
| Edited by | George Tomasini |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$1.2 million |
| Box office | US$2 million |
The Wrong Man is a 1956 American docudrama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Henry Fonda and Vera Miles. The film was drawn from the true story of an innocent man charged with a crime, as described in the book The True Story of Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero by Maxwell Anderson and in the magazine article "A Case of Identity" (Life magazine, June 29, 1953) by Herbert Brean.
It is one of the few Hitchcock films based on a true story and whose plot closely follows the real-life events.
The Wrong Man had a notable effect on two significant directors: it prompted Jean-Luc Godard's longest piece of written criticism in his years as a critic, and it has been cited as an influence on Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.
For the only time in his many films, Alfred Hitchcock starts this picture talking to the camera and says that "every word is true" in this story.
Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda), a down-on-his-luck musician at New York City's Stork Club, is in a money crunch. His wife, Rose (Vera Miles), needs to have her wisdom teeth extracted at a cost of $300, but the couple does not have that much money. Though he has already borrowed against his life insurance policy, he goes to the life insurance company to attempt to take a loan out against Rose's policy. He is immediately recognized by the clerical workers in the store as the man who had twice held up the insurance office. They inform the police, and he is taken to the 110th Precinct by detectives. Without being told why, Manny is instructed to walk in and out of a liquor store and delicatessen, both scenes of a robbery earlier that year. He is then asked by police to give a handwriting sample, writing the words from the stick-up note at the insurance company. Manny misspells the word "drawer" as "draw"—the same spelling mistake the robber made in the note. After being picked out of a police lineup by the women from the insurance company, he is then arrested and charged with robbery, and his family finds out that he will be in court on the following morning.
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Wikipedia