Look at how ‘bad suspects’ were treated by the cops, played by Harold J. Stone and Charles Cooper — arrested without their rights being read or told of the crime they are accused of. They are not allowed to contact their family, who fear the worst, interviews are conducted without written or taped records, witnesses are subtly coerced into identifying the ‘real’ suspect in a lineup, and are paraded past witnesses in the stores, whose expectations and willingness to ‘help’ the law are exploited, etc. Then, later, when on trial, we learn the cops have outright lied, claiming Manny admitted he was in debt to bookies.
The film also leaves threads dangling, such as Manny’s alibi of having a visibly swollen jaw the day of one of the robberies, and having a dentist who could verify this fact. Such a physical fact would easily be used by a good lawyer in his defense, but it would have likely ended the film’s drama right there.
The film also suffers in the area of detailing the mental disconnect of Fonda’s onscreen wife, Rose, played by Vera Miles. Her break from reality is too convenient and didactic a tool to show off the suffering of an innocent, when clearly there were larger problems that Manny’s arrest only brought to a head. She even physically attacks him with a hairbrush, something that shows that there’s more to the character’s breakdown. When Manny asks Rose why she doesn’t seem to care any more about his case or life, she replies, "Don’t you see? It doesn’t do any good to care. They’ve got it fixed against you. They’ll find you guilty, no matter what. But we’re not going to play into their hands anymore. You’re not going out. You’re not going to play at the club. And the boys aren’t going to school anymore. We’re going to lock the doors to the house and stay inside."
Most frightening is that even though delusional, she’s right, for had Manny not cooperated with the cops so willingly the case against him, purely circumstantial and a bit laughable, would have been even far weaker. Lastly, the film ends too patly and abruptly, with a cleared Manny leaving his wife in a sanatorium, only to have the film’s epilogue tell us all worked out well in the end. One could argue, since Hitchcock starts with himself introducing the film as based on a true story, that - a la Ingmar Bergman’s 1960s experiments with the acknowledged artifice of film - the film has no obligation to play out realistically, and its end with a shot of the reunited and happy family walking as we read the epilogue is justified. But, it’s still too easy a deus ex machina ending.
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Article comments
1 - Josh Lasser
I think your characterization of his films as having "tended to lack heart, or real human emotion" is completely off-base, the real stories aren't the capers and heists and twists, they're the characters and interactions between the characters. The rest is just his "maguffin."
2 - Dan Schneider
The stories are plot-driven. Hitchcock was not dep. You won't find the great characters of a Fellini nor Bergman in his films.
Even Kurosawa, who was more action-oriented, developed characters. Hitch was technically great, but skin-deep.
3 - Ray Ellis
Granted, The Wrong Man was one of Hitchcock's more forgettable films. But that doesn't negate the fact your review of it is way off base in a number of areas. The movie was made in 1956, yet you cite it as being unrealistic in that the police didn't advise the suspect of his rights. Miranda warnings weren't put in place until 1966, a full decade after the movie was released. Comparing The Wrong Man to Serpico is like comparing Charlie Chaplin to Woody Allen, with whom you're obviously enamored. Fellini and Hitchcock are likewise apples and oranges. If you don't know the fundamental difference between film noir and "neo-realism", you have no validity as a critic. Your Eurocentric bias merely betrays you as a person who has no working knowledge of what makes a film work or fail. Hitchcock understood that film is a visual medium, and utilized its visual nature to wordlessly leave it to the viewer to draw his own cathartic conclusions. Fellini, Bergman, Rosellini--all have acknowledged their debt to Hitchcock.
Please--if you're going to review film, get a basic knowledge of it as a storytelling medium.
4 - Dan Schneider
Ray: I state, 'which was so manifestly incompetent in this and so many other pre-Miranda Warning cases.'
I am aware of the Miranda warning's date, as stated above. Were you aware that, pre-Miranda, NY state required the reading of a state's rights for defendants? That was my reference, since it was set in NYC.
'Comparing The Wrong Man to Serpico is like comparing Charlie Chaplin to Woody Allen, with whom you're obviously enamored. Fellini and Hitchcock are likewise apples and oranges.'
Here is what I wrote, 'The film displays their bumbling idiocy in full, and while it is not the flat-out criminality that engulfs the officers of the later film Serpico.' I am comparing the officer's actions, not the film itself. It's a simple matter of reading what is written.
'If you don't know the fundamental difference between film noir and "neo-realism", you have no validity as a critic.' Film noir is not character- but plot-driven. This is clearly Neo-Realistic in intent. In the DVD, even, it is stated Hitchcock was deliberately aping the Italian Neo-Realists. But, one need only see the film to see that. It is not a film where the crime is first, but the social message. Have you even seen the film?
'film is a visual medium, and utilized its visual nature to wordlessly leave it to the viewer to draw his own cathartic conclusions'
Every tool of the visual art serves one purpose- the telling of the story- aka the plot and the characters. Without the story, all else is window dressing.
Keep reading, you may learn something yet of film.
5 - Dan Schneider
'Fellini, Bergman, Rosellini--all have acknowledged their debt to Hitchcock.'
And learnt from his flaws.
6 - Ray Ellis
The word you're looking for is "learned", not "learnt". There is no such word as "learnt" in modern English. Of course, I wouldn't expect you to know that, wrapped as you are in lengthy dissertations that have nothing to do with the merits of film. I was hoping your review of "Colossus: The Forbin Project" was a misdirected view of what constitutes science fiction. It's become increasingly apparent, however, that you are so immersed in a stringently narrow view of what film is about that you like the sound of your voice. You're full of indignation, but you signify nothing.
7 - Dan Schneider
Actually, you are right that learnt is the older version, but you are wrong in knowing it's not acceptable.
Of course, from someone who reads, 'The film displays their bumbling idiocy in full, and while it is not the flat-out criminality that engulfs the officers of the later film Serpico,' then writes, 'Comparing The Wrong Man to Serpico is like comparing Charlie Chaplin to Woody Allen,' and cannot discern I am comparing the officer's actions, not the film itself, it's to be expected.
Leave wordplay to the pros.
Look, there's a bird. Ain't it pretty? Now, just wipe that drool off your cheek.
8 - Dan Schneider
It's a conspiracy against you, Ray.
Hitch is chuckling.
9 - JDCanada
"deus ex machina ending" . . . lol
10 - Dan Schneider
No laughs needed if you've watched the film and understand the term.