GamerTab That was an excellent one.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

frankwiener While this film includes the familiar "Hitchcockian" themes of mistaken identity and of unsuspecting people suddenly finding themselves caught in the most exasperating situations, "The Wrong Man" comes with a couple of significant distinctions. Unlike most of Hitchcock's movies, this one is based on the true story of a New York City musician who is wrongly accused of several armed robberies in his Queens neighborhood. Beyond this, the film eventually moves from its focus on the wrongly accused victim to the devastating impact that an infuriating and frustrating sequence of events has upon the mental health of his spouse.Aside from the outstanding direction by the master of suspense himself, the realism of the black and white photography on location in 1956 Manhattan and Queens made me feel as though I were personally experiencing the outrage of the central character, Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda) and his spouse, Rose (Vera Miles). The eerie musical score of Bernard Hermann seemed to wail from the loneliness and despair of Manny's nightmarish predicament. Finally, the performances of Fonda, Miles, and Anthony Quayle as their attorney (who was experienced but not in criminal matters!) completed the recipe for a unique and absorbing cinematic experience. I had recently seen Miles in John Ford's "The Searchers", which happened to be filmed in the very same year as this, but that role, which I actually found to be annoying, could never reveal her true acting ability as this one did. They were "miles" apart from each other in both depth and intensity.There were many memorable moments in this film worth noting, but a few exceptional segments were the very credible and disturbing shots of Manny being processed as a crime suspect, the scene in the courtroom when he looks around the room to observe the jurors, spectators, and court employees bored and distracted while his very life was on the line, and the moment of prayer when he envisions the sight of the actual criminal walking toward him. By the way, while he may have worn a similar hat and coat, the real culprit didn't look anything like Henry Fonda in my humble opinion. Other reviewers here feel differently.For me, "The Wrong Man" is the right movie, regardless of how disturbing the subject matter of gross injustice and its devastating consequences may be.

oOoBarracuda It was Henry Fonda's turn to star in an Alfred Hitchcock film with his 1956 feature The Wrong Man. Co-starring with Fonda was Vera Miles, in a film based on a true story which explored what happens when to a man's life when he is falsely accused of a crime. Exploring a theme common in Hitchcock thrillers, the innocent man convicted of a crime he didn't commit, The Wrong Man provided a thorough look into presumed guilt. which proved as a nice preparation for Fonda's scene-stealing turn in the Sidney Lumet classic 12 Angry Men the following year. Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda) was a devoted family man, a loving husband, and a practiced bassist at the Stork Club in New York. Father to two sons and devoted husband to Rose Balestrero (Vera Miles), Manny takes his family's financial woes in stride, always seeking a loan from the bank when they come up short rather than succumbing to gambling or any illicit activities. A religious Catholic, Manny spends his spare time giving his two sons music lessons and visiting his elderly parents. When Rose needs an expensive oral surgery, Manny decides to seek out a loan at the bank against Rose's life insurance policy. Immediately upon entering the bank, Manny is identified as a man responsible for a string of robberies in the area. Initially complying with police, as he is confident of his innocence, Manny becomes distraught when he is asked to enter several locations that have been robbed by his doppelganger and he is repeatedly identified as the culprit. Deprived of being able to go in and tell his wife and children of what happened, Manny is whisked off to the police station leaving his worried family behind, as their patriarch is never late. The more Manny cooperates with police, the more he appears guilty, until finally he is convicted at trial. When Manny finally gets to see his family, he is worried that they will assume he is guilty, but that worry is quickly squashed when his wife desperately tries to get an attorney, which she finally attains. Can even the best lawyer in New York get Manny out of jail when every piece of the case is against him?An especially intriguing part of The Wrong Man was the brilliant score and film sound Hitchcock used in the film. It has always puzzled me that some Hitchcock films are scored so well, yet others seem to be almost ignored. Surely this has much to do with who he had an opportunity to work with, but it's always baffling to me, with The Wrong Man being one of the best films of his for score and sound. You can tell the idea of someone wrongfully being accused is an exposed nerve for Hitchcock. He explores this theme through many of his films including, Suspicion, and North By Northwest; it is in films with this theme that Hitch seems to be at his most vulnerable and the films that come off the most emotionally raw. I think of The Wrong Man as Hitchcock's most depressing film, and that is in no way a bad thing. It is the emotion that pours through a perfectly cast Henry Fonda that really makes you feel the anxieties Hitchcock must have felt when selecting stories in which a man was wrongly convicted of a crime; the fear of suddenly having your world taken away from you and being isolated from your friends and family. The Wrong Man was wonderfully paced, only losing it a bit towards the end with Rose being institutionalized due to being overwhelmed by Manny's situation. Although a difficult film to watch for anyone who's ever studied conviction of the innocent, The Wrong Man is an essential film to view, a fantastic Hitchcock spectacle, and a crucial piece of what convictions used to look like. The Wrong Man is a wonderful Hitchcock film, which owes a great deal of its success to the inimitable and perfectly emoting Henry Fonda.

John Brooks A Kafkaesque narrative, based on a story that actually happened, starring the highly expressive and excellent Henry Fonda along with a very good, and particularly beautiful Vera Miles alongside him. The classic theme: a man wrongfully accused, his trial and tribulations, and the lingering question, seemingly forever - is he even really innocent at all ? What a man can lose when he is being convicted, often far more than just material loss. His perseverance in this personal battle against what seems to be the entire world. The glimmers of hope, the devastating news, and Fonda's character's world that seems to come apart bit by bit, something almost of a Job's parallel from the Bible.Very well made, constantly compelling and suspenseful in its own way. And an ending worthwhile.

Tweekums Manny Balestrero makes a living as a bassist at a New York club; the money isn't great but he, his wife Rose and their two children get by. Then Rose needs some dental work so Manny goes to cash in an insurance policy… and that is where is troubles begin; the woman who serves him thinks he looks like the man who robbed the place recently; she tells her co-workers and they agree with her. He is arrested just before he gets home and taken to the police station. At first he is more concerned about letting his wife know what has happened than anything else… after all it is a case of misidentification and will soon be sorted out. Unfortunately things aren't sorted, far from it. He is taken to the sites of two other robberies where the victims also identify him. He is quickly charged, processed and remanded to jail. Luckily he is soon bailed and employs lawyer Frank O'Connor. As the trial approaches Manny and Rose try to find witnesses that can confirm that Manny couldn't have done it; the first two they discover has since died and Rose has a breakdown; blaming herself for their predicament. She is taken to a sanatorium while Manny faces trial alone.Alfred Hitchcock made plenty of films about people caught up in crime, but as his introduction states, this is unusual because it is based on real events… knowing this, but not knowing details of the case, made this tenser than it would have been otherwise. Aspects of the story would appear unlikely in a work of fiction; most notably the way some witnesses are allowed to confer and others are primed to expect the robber. Henry Fonda is on great form as Manny and Anthony Quayle impresses as Frank O'Connor but is Vera Miles who stands out as Rose as she suffers a breakdown. As one might expect Hitchcock does a great job keeping the story gripping and using many of the actual locations rather than film sets. As the story progresses it is hard not to feel a sense of injustice and wonder how many other people like Manny there must be. Overall I'd certainly recommend this less well known Hitchcock film.