Does anyone know the month the article appeared in Life magazine? Apparently Hitchcock was inspired to make the movie because he read the article in the magazine. I suppose it must have been later in 1953, as Ballestrero was arrested in January of that year, or it could have been much later, after the wife had been released from the hospital.
shareAccording to "The Reader's Guide to Periodical Litterature" for 1953-1955, there were two articles in Life Magazine concerning Manny Ballestrero. One was published in June 1953 and one in January 1954.
shareThere was an article February 1st 1954 - Does anyone know where to find it online?
I can try to answer any questions you have, i'm not sure on when things were published, but the detective who realized that they had the wrong man in custody i considered to be a grandfather to me. When he passed away almost two years ago his daughter, my godmother, told me the real story. A lot of the movie was altered to portray the department in a better light, god forbid they admit to their huge mistake...
shareGood information to know, I really identified with the character and had my own situation a few years ago where I was wrongly accused and taken and bullied by the police and when protesting my innocence was abused. My trust of police was forever dashed. I know there are good individuals but to genralize any group as good or bad is not a smart move.
shareJune 29, 1953 (per Wikipedia), it was entitled "A Case of Identity" and written by Herbert Brean. It had also been on TV in 1953 as part of the half-hour anthology series "Robert Montgomery Presents" (1950-1957), and starring Robert Ellenstein, who would later play James Mason's balding henchman Licht in Hitch's "North By Northwest."
shareYou can find the June 15, 1953 issue at:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=CkgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=Balestrero+mistrial&source=bl&ots=rRYOdWFZbI&sig=s7WkErtRYnIUgmu2ww0iJvkqwM4&hl=en&ei=lUp8TKzDMtGgnQeP4OCeCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CC4Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Balestrero%20mistrial&f=false
The story begins on page 97.
The best part of this article is that it includes photos of both Manny and the real suspect side by side.
Thanks for that link to the article. My father was Manny's horse-playing buddy in the Stork Club rumba band (he played saxaphone and clarinet), and I remember the story quite well (I was around 11 years old at the time). My dad had to sign a release from Warner Bros. since he is peripherally mentioned in the film when Manny refers to the fact that he sometimes bets on horses with someone in the band. I also remember that Manny and my dad were Giant fans and I was a Dodger fan, and on at least one occasion we went to the old Polo Grounds to see a Giant game.
shareFrom reading this article, I see there are 4 discrepencies between what really happened and what Hitchcock did in the film.
1) In film, Manny is one who decides to use Rose's life insurance policy to get loan. Article says it was Rose's idea.
2) In film, Manny is told to write the holdup note twice. In the article, it says he was asked to write it half a dozen times, and only one time did he misspell "drawer" as "draw".
3) Bail in the film was set at $7500. In the article it says it was $5000.
4) They show photos of Balestrero and the real crook, and they really do look very similar to me. So that is a major "license" that Hitchcock takes, to make the 2 girls who identified him incorrectly look worse. Of course, it might have been impossible to find an actor who looked so much like Fonda.
5) The police had him walk through a "dozen liquor and drug stores and delicatessens" according to the article. In the movie, we only see him do this with 2 or 3 stores. Of course, since you couldn't show all of these, this was perfectly acceptable shorthand and is not really important. On the other hand, there are ways you could convey this at least, such as the cop saying, "well, you're probably sick of this after doing it over 10 times, but this is the last time".
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Plus they have Manny declare his age as 38 in the film as opposed to 43 as in real life.
It ain't easy being green, or anything else, other than to be me