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Gooooood evening. In this months episode of Presenting Hitchcock, Cory and Aaron Fight for truth and freedom as they discuss “The Wrong Man.”
The Picture:
Picture Title: The Wrong Man
Written by:
Screenplay by: Maxwell Anderson & Angus MacPhail
Story by: Maxwell Anderson
Starring: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone and Charles Cooper
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Year Released: 1956
The Trailer:
Our Favourite Trivia:
DIRECTOR CAMEO: Narrating the prologue. This was the only time that he actually spoke in any of his movies. Hitchcock filmed one of his usual cameos, standing in a restaurant as Manny sits, but decided on using a narrated prologue instead.
Alfred Hitchcock utilized some of the actual real-life locations where the events took place including some of the actual witnesses. Among these are the jail cell where the real Manny Balestrero was incarcerated, the caretakers at the country inn and the inn itself, and the sanitarium where Manny’s wife was committed. As much as Hitchcock hated filming his movies on location, he felt that authenticity was crucial to this film due to its real-life “elements that are stranger than all the fiction” he had filmed in his movies prior to this.
This movie is one of Martin Scorsese’s favorite Hitchcock movies, and was an influence on Scorese’s “Taxi Driver” (1976).
Theatrical movie debut of Harry Dean Stanton (Department of Corrections Employee).
This was Hitchcock’s final film for Warner Bros. It completed a contract commitment that had begun with two films produced for Transatlantic Pictures and released by Warner Brothers: Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949), his first two films in Technicolor. After The Wrong Man, Hitchcock returned to Paramount Pictures.
Chris Balestrero sued the city for false arrest. Asking $500,000, he accepted a settlement of just $7,000. He earned $22,000 from the film, which went to repaying loans for Rose’s care
Balestrero’s attorney, the real Frank O’Connor was a former New York State Senator at the time of the trial, and later became the district attorney of Queens County (New York City, New York), the president of the New York City Council and an appellate-court judge.
Rose Balestrero (1910–1982) died in Florida at the age of 72. Despite the claim in the film’s epilogue, Rose never fully recovered after her nervous breakdown. She blamed herself for her husband’s arrest.
Chris and Rose’s son, Gregory, went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and has become the CEO of the Project Management Institute.
A street is named “Manny ‘The Wrong Man’ Balestrero Way” at 73rd Street and 41st Avenue in Jackson Heights, New York. The street is not far from the former real-life Balestrero home.
The Random Draw for Next Picture:
Next up, we’ll be discussing “Dial M for Murder”
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