The Wrong Man (1956) - film review

Working as a bass player in an exclusive New York nightclub, Manny Balestrero earns just enough to keep himself, his wife Rose and his two young sons.  Rose needs dental treatment, but the only way to raise the money is to borrow against her life insurance policy.  In the insurance company office, Manny is recognised by the counter staff as the man who recently pulled off two armed robberies.  They notify the police and Manny is arrested.  When her husband’s alibis for the earlier robberies evaporate, Rose becomes consumed by guilt and suffers a mental collapse...

Whilst it may embrace many familiar Hitchcockian themes, such as mistaken identity, mental derangement and transference of guilt, The Wrong Man is markedly different from Alfred Hitchcock’s other films, and could even be mistaken as the work of an altogether different director.   The surprising stylistic change of direction is heralded at the start of the film by the appearance of Hitchcock himself, not in his usual fleeting cameo but as a ghostly silhouette in film noir long shot, to tell us that what we are about to see is based entirely on a true story.  

The factual nature of the narrative is reflected in the strikingly realist approach which Hitchcock adopts for this film.  It is probable that Hitch had been influenced by the emergence of neo-realism in European cinema at the time – exemplified by the work of the Italian cineaste Roberto Rossellini.   Hitchcock eschews the slick Hollywood style of his previous films in favour of an evocative mix of film noir and near-documentary, making this a chilling parable of how the State can thoughtlessly wreck the lives of its citizens.

Real locations and naturalistic performances are complemented by a very restrained cinematographic style and a meticulous attention to detail, which heighten the sense of realism, to the point of risking viewer antipathy.  The Wrong Man is much more a film d’auteur than a typical Hollywood commercial film.  It may have fared very poorly at the box office when it was first released, but it is undoubtedly one of Hitchcock’s most daring and inspired contributions to the art of cinema.

Much of the film’s intense emotional realism comes from Henry Fonda’s convincing portrayal of an innocent family man who is drawn into a Kafkaesque nightmare from which there is, apparently, no escape.  Fonda’s talent for playing the ordinary man is put to good use and he really does get across the immense trauma and pathos of a man who is on the brink of losing everything.

The subjective camera work (consisting of some very effective point-of-view shots) and Bernard Herrmann’s appropriately subdued score complement Fonda’s performance superbly, helping the viewer to identify with Manny’s growing anxiety and shame as the net closes in around him.  An equally impressive performance from Vera Miles heightens the film’s tragic dimension, helping to make this Hitchcock’s bleakest and most poignant film.

© James Travers 2008

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