DIRECTED BY
Alfred Hitchcock
WRITTEN BY
Maxwell Anderson,
Angus McPhail
STARRING
Henry Fonda,
Vera Miles,
Anthony Quayle
The only film by The Master of Suspense based on a true story. Henry Fonda plays real-life jazz musician Emanuel Balestrero, a bass player at Manhattan’s Stork Club who is sucked into a whirlpool of circumstantial guilt and left to drown in New York's criminal justice system. This somber gem is a grim orphan among Alfred Hitchcock’s glossy 1950s confections, less sensational but filled with the director’s deeply personal existential dread. Shot entirely on locations where the story actually happened, the film expertly draws the viewer into the nightmare of the falsely accused. Hitchcock was famously paranoid of the police, and here those fears reach their zenith. Bernard Herrmann’s innovative score replaces his usually lush and dynamic orchestrations with minimalist and often dissonant cues that make it unique among his legendary filmography. Featuring a sadly memorable performance by Vera Miles as Fonda’s beleaguered wife, Rose.
