The Wrong Man

The first half is great, suspenseful, mysterious, dark, well-directed. The second half becomes...odd. The whole wife subplot was a bit unsatisfying and incongruous - it feels as if the first half of one film and the second of another were slapped together, in a way. It picks up a little towards the immediate end, though. Fonda is great, as always, and this has some of Hitchcock's best photography, a great noirish chiaroscuro giving the film a very menacing feel.

This is a perfect marriage of movie star & director. Henry Fonda loved showcasing ordinary men confronting unjust systems. And Alfred Hitchcock excelled with tense thrillers detailing inept authority terrorizing heroes. The result is a great social thriller. The wife storyline starts well, but loses some steam at the end. And at times I don't think the editing helps the amazing jazz score. Still, it holds up as a cautionary tale on the hell that Karens can bring. Recommended.

Henry Fonda is the perfect "wrong" man, he says a lot with his eye movements !

For the first half, it's one of the top-tier Hitchcocks. Intense and dark, European influence showing in the New Wavey-ness and a bit of neorealism as well. Henry Fonda is great. Towards the ending though, it becomes a bit unsatisfying.

Hitchcock's used the storyline concept of the wrong man in many of his films; here is the one where he treats it with a grim, straight-forward seriousness rarely seen elsewhere. It feels almost Brechtian. As such the film is a bit dry, and when it becomes psychological in the end it becomes a bit silly. But on some level Hitchcock is working with material he considers terrifying, and presents it as such.