The Wrong Man (1956) on Netflix
Manny Balestrero, a string bassist at a New York club, needs money for his wife's dental care. At the insurance office, the clerks take him for the robber who held them up.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.4/1035,195 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Christopher Emanuel Balestrero, called Manny, plays string bass at the Stork Club in New York City and lives in Jackson Heights with his wife Rose and their two young sons. Money is tight, and Rose's aching tooth needs work the family cannot afford, so Manny decides to borrow against her life insurance policy. When he visits the insurance office, the clerks grow nervous, believing he is the man who held them up a month earlier. Police officers are waiting at his doorstep that evening and take him to the station without explaining why. Questioned about his finances, he answers, and detectives drive him to neighborhood shops that were robbed, where the owners cannot identify him with certainty. At the station, the insurance clerks are brought in to look at him.
Cast
- Lola D'Annunzioas Olga Conforti - Manny's Sister
Show all 20 cast
- Kippy Campbellas Robert Balestrero
- Robert Essenas Gregory Balestrero
- Richard Robbinsas Daniel - the Guilty Man
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Wrong Man (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film prompted Jean-Luc Godard's longest piece of written criticism during his years as a critic, and it has been cited as an influence on Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.
- Manny Balestrero, the man the film is about, sued the city for false arrest. He asked for $500,000 and accepted a settlement of just $7,000.
- The Wrong Man is recognized as the only Alfred Hitchcock film based on a true story whose plot closely follows the real-life events.
- Hitchcock appears only in silhouette in a darkened studio before the credits, announcing the story is true; he had intended to be seen as a customer walking into the Stork Club but edited himself from the final print.
- Hitchcock strove for a documentary style and chose to revisit and film in many locations from Balestrero's real story, even including people who were present in his life at the time.
- A street in Jackson Heights, Queens, is named "Manny 'The Wrong Man' Balestrero Way", at 73rd Street and 41st Avenue.
- Because the film was based on a true story, it led some police forces in America to review their procedures for identifying suspects.
