Movie Details
| Title: | The Wrong Man | |
| Director: | Alfred Hitchcock | |
| Year: | 1956 | |
| Genre: | Noir | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 05.29.07 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (7)
- Family Plot
- The Man Who Knew Too Much
- Marnie
- North by Northwest
- Notorious
- Spellbound
- Topaz
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 05.29.07 | Paramount | And the next movie he did was this. A coplete change of pace and a major step away from his run of technicolor suspense thrillers. This is like Hitchcock's go at the docunoir style (and only like 10 years late) except instead of following the cops or the criminal it follows a wrongly-accused innocent through the elaborate procedure of mid-50s crime fighting. I think this movie suffers from maybe the worst dating ever. It's pretty hard to give up the thought that this guy in the exact same situation today would walk out of the police station in like an hour. He wouldn't even go downtown, much less get put through what he does here. And the methods used by the cops to prove his guilt are copletely ridiculous. It doesn't play well today at all. Actually, I'm not 100% sure it would've played even back then. This is like 5 years after the start of Dragnet and numerous other police procedural movies... It has the whole "this is a true story" to hang on and make you marvel at how bad the system is, but still. It's a perfect excuse for Hitch to show us how creeped out he was by cops and jails and the whole thing, and I think that's by far the strongest part of the movie. I wouldn't be sad if the film ended after the scene where Fonda gets out on bail. After that, it turns into the movie that refuses to end. My least favorite part of this movie is Vera Miles and her character. ugh. So it's not my favorite, but I don't really dislike it either thanks to the really effective POV shots and maddening first 45 minute or so. It's an interesting choice of movies for the Paramount to program. I have to commend them for not making the super obvious choices (and I'll be comending them even more next week when I see Notorious and Spellbound there) but I'd really really really like to see Dial M for Murder in 3-D so... Paramount guys, if you're listening... ahem! |
