The wrong man documentary
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The Wrong Man
1956 film by Alfred Hitchcock
This article is about the 1956 film by Alfred Hitchcock. For other uses, see The Wrong Man (disambiguation).
The Wrong Man is a 1956 American docudramafilm noir 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[2][3] and in the magazine article "A Case of Identity", which was published in Life magazine in June 1953 by Herbert Brean.[4]
It is recognized as the only Hitchcock film 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,[5][6] and it has been cited as an influence on Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.[7]
Plot
Alfred Hitchcock (or a double; he is in silhouette) appears on screen
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Vera Miles
American actress (born 1929)
For the Czech-American figure skater and actress, see Vera Ralston.
Vera Miles | |
|---|---|
Vera Miles, c. 1950s | |
| Born | Vera June Ralston (1929-08-23) August 23, 1929 (age 95) Boise City, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1950–1995 |
| Spouses | Bob Miles (m. 1948; div. 1954)Gordon Scott (m. 1956; div. 1960)Keith Larsen (m. 1960; div. 1971) |
| Children | 4 |
Vera June Miles (née Ralston; born August 23, 1929) is an American retired actress. She is known for appearing in John Ford's Western filmsThe Searchers (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and for playing Lila Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and Richard Franklin's sequel Psycho II (1983).
Miles' other film credits include Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (1955), The Wrong Man (1956), A Touch of Larceny (1959), Follow Me, Boys! (19
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Acclaim for Nothing to Fear: Alfred Hitchcock and the Wrong Men:
“VERDICT: Come for the Hitchcock, stay for the history. Fascinating.”
— LibraryJournal“Arresting and important.”
— New York Journal of Books“A profoundly vital text.”
— The Film Stage“Well-researched and well-crafted.”
— Newsday“Revealing and insightful.”
— NoirCity, the magazine of the Film Noir Foundation
As a movie about the criminal justice system, The Wrong Man was ahead of its time. In the 1950s, American courts continued to invoke the assurance of a New York appellate judge, Learned Hand, that the risk of wrongful conviction was an “unreal dream.” Hitchcock makes the contrary case. In fact, the film’s most famous line is an ironic reformulation of Judge Hand’s premise. “An innocent man has nothing to fear,” the detectives tell Balestrero as they interrogate him. But The Wrong Man explodes that cliché. It shows how the routines of law enforcement transformed eyewitness mistakes into a miscarriage of justice.
(From the introduction to Nothing to
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