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Robin looks at a fascinating anomaly as Alfred Hitchcock attempts to make a neo-realist film.

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52 Weeks of Hitchcock: 29. The Wrong Man

Robin looks at another divisive Hitchcock film and one that sees the old dog trying to learn new tricks.

Comments

steve scibelli

I alway thought Fonda was terribly miscast. Maybe because as an Italian American New Yorker he just ain't that no way no how. But i also felt that way about Bob Cummings as a guy who just never would have set foot into the Brooklyn navy yard.

Anonymous

These days they'd make a YouTube documentary of it. The thing about most people's real lives is that they are not the stuff of films. Even in extraordinary circumstances, most of us are rather dull, and content to be that way.

Anonymous

My thought was that if it had been Rose’s it would have worked better. Vera Miles was really good.

Anonymous

You mentioned the conversation about money troubles. and I think that might (no real idea, just a flyer) be a Hitchcock comment on America's specific relationship to money, aspiration, and class. "Keeping up with the Joneses" is a cliche, but it really sums up the American viewpoint towards the difference between "working class" or "struggling" and "hopeless poverty." The things that we require in order to regard ourselves as still in with a chance, as it were, are usually things like owning a home; if not that, at least owning a car. Not having a refrigerator or a washer/dryer, say, is considered, to quote Bill Bryson, the last step before living out of a plastic sack. When Americans started to travel to Europe in greater numbers, they were astonished at how people considered similar to them on the socioeconomic scale never even considered having those things as a possibility.

Anonymous

I think 'The Simpsons' summed it up in 'Homer's Enemy' when Frank Grimes a smart man who has struggled his own life sees the "palace' Homer who loafs through life can afford.

Anonymous

I've only ever heard of the movie, never actually watched it. I may have to now after seeing this.

Anonymous

Setting aside the Italian influence, The Wrong Man also fits into the film noir genre of the time. I have seen it included in lists of classic noir films. The later part of the initial film noir movement had an emphasis on location shooting and a pseudo-documentary approach (Kiss Of Death is a good example). Of course, this approach may have derived from Italian films.

Anonymous

Thanks for this. I think I liked it the most of all your Hitchcock analyses so far.

Anonymous

I agree it fits into the Noir genre. I'm reminded of the classically noir line at the end of "Detour" (1945): "Fate, or some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all."