03 Sep
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A very Hitchcock evening!

A very, very busy evening with an audience of 66 out of 71 booked. We even had a visitor from New Zealand in the audience.

 

And one gentleman told us afterwards that having now seen The Wrong Man he had finally watched every Hitchcock film; quite a milestone !

 

And …. we’ve added approximately £180 to our Charity pot.

 

The Wrong Man isn’t one of Hitch’s best known films, nor is generally ranked alongside his more famous work such as Psycho or Rear Window. Rotten Tomatoes has it number 24 in its ranking of Hitchcock films.

 

Not having seen it before I do think it worth watching for the darker documentary style that Hitchcock chose for this true story of a man wrongly convicted. But it isn’t an easy watch.

“Glad to see this but found it uncharacteristically slow”
“Slow but sure – almost unbelievable American law. “
Certainly the film is a little pedestrian but the slow-burn approach worked for me; it allowed time to really take in what was happening and almost share in Manny’s growing helplessness.
Then again I loved that quality in First Cow when we screened it – something many of our Volunteers fundamentally disagree with me on !
“Intriguing and different especially for Hitchcock but actually quite difficult.”
Henry Fonda is key to the success of the film. His performance gives Manny an extraordinary inner strength as he deals not only with the horror and humiliation or being wrongly arrested  but also with trying to hold his family together at the same time as watching his wife deteriorate psychologically.  Vera Miles’ depiction of Manny’s wife Rose was well acted as she created a very striking sub-plot across two contrasting halves of the film. Early on we see the warmth and love between Manny and Rose. Later, as the pressure mounts we see the psychological impact on Rose resulting in her breakdown and depression, becoming increasingly isolated and remote.
“Odd ending”
The ending, though,  was the weakest part for me and I suspect others in our audience.

 

We had followed a dark film with hard-hitting storylines of wrongful arrest, fear and mental illness and I expected some of that complexity to be reflected in the ending.

 

Instead the film abruptly moved to a sunny scene, the street lined with palm trees and and an on-screen message effectively telling us that (and I’m paraphrasing here) two years later Rose had recovered  and the family lived happily ever after in Florida. It’s almost as if the film was finished and then someone told Hitchcock “We need a happy ending”.

 

Perhaps that worked for audiences in 1956 (we’ve had a couple of films recently which have ended similarly abruptly) but I feel that the film would have been more powerful had it ended with Manny’s innocence proven but with the family facing the challenge of supporting Rose and rebuilding their lives.

 

In the true story, the recovery of Manny’s wife Rose took a long time and the family never fully escaped from the ordeal they’d undergone.

So what did our audience think ?

Despite some reservations the overall response was positive.
“Great film – really enjoyable”
“Not my favourite film but still a good one.”
“Fantastic film – held my attention all the way through. Very thought provoking!”
Our audience gave it an average score of 9.1 – very similar to the Rotten Tomatoes score of 93%. The distribution of scores was a little different to what we normally see. One person really disliked the film giving it a 5, but there were more scores of 8 than usual. Normally we tend to see a greater concentration of 9s and a few more 10s. I read from that and from the feedback that it might not have been one of our most loved films, but our audience were glad that they had seen it.

 

 

And a few more comments from the evening:

Hitchcock got to do his documentary!

Thoughtful story. Lovely filmwork enhanced by black and white photography

An unexpected film – really good

Enjoyable film – I’m a fan of Hitchcock. Scary to know it’s base on a true story

Interesting film. Not what I would normally watch.

And, importantly, plenty of appreciation for everything around the film too:

Great evening as usual

Today’s Mocktail – VERY GOOD

Many thanks to all the helpers. Fantastic service.

Wonderful as always. Not my favourite film but still a good one. Cocktail was great and everyone is fab

 

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