The Wrong Man

Theatrical Release Poster

**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".

It is one of the few Hitchcock films based on a true story and whose plot closely follows the real-life events.

## Plot

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, a down-on-his-luck musician at New York City's Stork Club, is in a money crunch. His wife, Rose, 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 mistaken 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.

Attorney Frank O'Connor sets out to prove that Manny cannot possibly be the right man: at the time of the first hold-up he was on vacation with his family, and at the time of the second his jaw was so swollen that witnesses would certainly have noticed. Manny and Rose look for three people who saw Manny at the vacation hotel, but two have died and the third cannot be found. All this devastates Rose, whose resulting depression forces her to be hospitalized.

During Manny's trial a juror, bored with the minutiae of one witness' testimony, makes a remark which prompts the judge to declare a mistrial. While Manny is awaiting a second trial, he is exonerated after the true robber is arrested holding up a grocery store. Manny visits Rose at the hospital to share the good news, but, as the film ends, she remains clinically depressed; a textual epilogue explains that she recovered two years later.

## Cast

* Henry Fonda as Manny Balestrero
* Vera Miles as Rose Balestrero
* Anthony Quayle as Frank O'Connor
* Harold J. Stone as Jack Lee
* Charles Cooper as Det. Matthews
* John Hildebrand as Tomasini
* Esther Minciotti as Mama Balestrero
* Doreen Lang as Ann James
* Laurinda Barrett as Constance Willis
* Norma Connolly as Betty Todd
* Nehemiah Persoff as Gene Conforti
* Lola D'Annunzio as Olga Conforti
* Werner Klemperer as Dr. Bannay
* Kippy Campbell as Robert Balestrero
* Robert Essen as Gregory Balestrero
* Richard Robbins as Daniel - The Guilty Man

## Trivia

* The scene where Manny Fonda is taken to prison was filmed in a real prison.
* Although based on a true story, Alfred Hitchcock deliberately left out some of the information that pointed to Manny's innocence to heighten the tension.
* Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of his usual cameos, standing in a restaurant as Manny sits, but decided on using a narrated prologue instead.
* On the DVD, the running commentary revealed that when the crew went to film the scenes at the country hotel, Alfred Hitchcock stayed in his limo due to the cold weather outside and decided to move the production to Hollywood in order to complete the film.