1956: The Wrong Man (55th!)

What else happened this year? Cold War stuff most likely - is '56 the invasion of budapest? *Checks* Yes, yes it was.

What is the plot - in one sentence? Despite looking like Henry Fonda, some poor police work and overenthusiastic witness work puts Henry Fonda in jail for a crime he didn't commit.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? He didn't commit the crimes (a series of stick-up jobs around the town). It's also a true story. Also, they arrested him because of his overcoat and hat, in an age where everyone wore that same outfit. His wife goes into a depression here, but we're told that it took her two years in real life to overcome it.

What is the meaning of the title? They arrest the wrong man for a crime he didn't commit. 

 

So this is the brother-in-law and wife of the main character. They don't interact much, but some light, drunken internet browsing shows that they are both alive as of August 2021. How cool.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? Henry Fonda's Character, who is based on a real person, is named Christopher Emanuel "Manny" Balestrero (more on that later). He's so earnest that he doesn't slap his wife after she beats him with a candlestick in a depressive rage (again, more on that later). In the 1950s you'd get jailtime for NOT slapping your wife in that situation.

She goes from stressed-out about the trial, to 'crazy' almost instantly. She is dealt with by 1950s psychiatry: she is aggressively cross-examined and then discussed behind her back by her doctor and husband. At the movie's end, we're told that the real Mrs Balestrero recovered, but it ends pretty abruptly.

Probably the most telling thing is, this would be a podcast or a single episode of a crime series now, not a two hour movie.

Any thoughts? So, the main part of the movie is that it's fact based, and the wrong man was arrested. We show him going through the system of justice when it can go wrong - unreliable witnesses, hostile and prejudiced police, a mistrial, and you get to see the end results of this. He's clearly innocent, but he's forced into jail and is out to see bail, and it has a huge effect on his family. However, showing all of this and all of these processes is VERY slow.

This is a very slow movie. It's largely for effect - it's a sapping experience to be screwed around by the system, but that doesn't help. When he first is put into a cell, the camera follows him around the cell, and then he sits against the wall, while the camera moves in an A and then a V pattern, with violin music, getting more and more intense, and then the camera moves more and more quickly, and the music gets louder... but it lasts about 2 minutes and it's mental, for want of a better word.

There's also no doubt whatsoever that he's innocent. He's probably the most earnest and wholesome character who Henry Fonda ever played in his life, which is saying something. I imagine that the real life person who this happened to was a little less innocent. Who knows why the police happened to arrest a guy called Mr. Balestrero?? Speaking of which, Henry Fonda does try to speak a little Spanish in this movie, which he seems to do at gun point.

Probably the most interesting thing I found is that the characters playing Balestrero's wife and brother in law are both alive and well at the time of writing - she's in her 90s and he's well over 100. How fantastic is that?

Would you recommend this? I wouldn't really. There are better Hitchcock ones around, and better Henry Fonda movies around. It's not without its charms or anything, but it was very slow and not very captivating.

Final thoughts? Speaking of Hitchcock, this is another movie of his about a case of mistaken identity. Vera Miles, (who plays the wife here) was in Psycho, released a few years later (she was Janet Leigh's sister). There's also a similarly weird showing of psychiatry there, too.

But probably the most telling indication that this was a Hitchcock movie - save for the introduction by the man himself at the beginning, and honestly, who does that nowadays? - was the two smug, hysterical women who finger Henry Fonda (not like that) in a police line-up, and then do the same for the real criminal, but are unable to make eye contact with Henry Fonda after that happens.

Oh, I forgot my favourite part of the movie: the 'real' criminal is caught, he's robbing a deli, and a Jewish woman pulls a knife at him and stamps her feet like a goat, while her husband wrestles him. She calls the police and he says 'he's going no where.' It's awesome, and probably those Jews are coded as having seen some things, if they're around in the 1950s.

55 of these - where does all the time go? To watching movies and then writing about them. I do this for you, the least you could do is read a few more of these here, you heartless fiend.