Directed by:
Alfred HitchcockCinematography:
Robert BurksComposer:
Bernard HerrmannCast:
Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone, Charles Cooper, Esther Minciotti, Doreen Lang, Nehemiah Persoff, Alfred Hitchcock, William Hudson (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
Manny Balestrero, a bass fiddle player at a New York hot spot, heads home to his wife and two children late one evening. When he arrives, Rose tells Manny she needs an expensive medical procedure--one which the family cannot afford. So they agree to borrow money on her life insurance policy. But at the insurance office, three employees mistake Manny for a man who robbed them just days earlier. That night, he's arrested and charged with a series of hold-ups. Thus begins an honest man's desperate struggle to prove his innocence. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (3)
Professional period filmmaking, quality camera work, careful selection of actors, decent editing, and film techniques with special effects that are simply from the mid-1950s. Simply Hitchcock, as we know him. The opening shots create a pleasant bourgeois atmosphere of a happy middle-class family, only to be followed by an unexpected encounter, accusations of a crime, and a harrowing journey to clear one's name. The screenplay avoids over-complication and obvious mistakes, and the film can rely on the excellent performance of Henry Fonda in the lead role. His eyes and facial expressions perfectly correspond to a person going through a serious life crisis. Everything is accompanied by emotive film music. Overall impression: 75%. This is one of those films that hasn't significantly aged.
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Scorsese's Taxi Driver is an inspiring docudrama that can make you feel queasy both from the helplessness caused by a single accusation and from the camera circling in front of the protagonist at one moment. By the way, if the investigators had listened to Dave Kujan, they would know that anyone who falls asleep in a cell after being detained is their guy. They've got him; everything has fallen off him, and he wants to rest. An innocent person wouldn't even blink in this situation. Hitchcock is not very convincing without his "suspense," and he didn't hold the reins of Manny's wife's psychological problems and the final confrontation with those who pointed fingers at the beginning very firmly. Henry Fonda as a vulnerable man humiliated by the system is, however, flawless. When he takes a job with Morton on the railroad twelve years later, the performance is all the more breathtaking.
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An amazing performance by Henry Fonda – the fear in his eyes is palpable. And of course Hitchcock's very suggestive direction with many novel ideas highlights this.
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