MovieChat Forums > The Wrong Man (1957) Discussion > period piece ---- SPOILERS!

period piece ---- SPOILERS!

posted 16 years ago by PenTheater
2 replies | jump to latest

Watching this for the first time I walk away with some
sobering realizations; A lot has changed in 50 years.
1. Imagine a police station in New York with 4 or 5 detectives all working on
a robbery suspect involving 71 dollars, and not much of anything else.
2. A person willingly going in a police car to a crime scene and walking around to be identified.
3. A police line up in a hallway!, The witnesses together. "Number 4."
"and I pick number 4"!
4. Writing out a robbery note dictated by a police officer and handing it to him.

[–] pr1mal_1 15 years ago

I know what you mean. I especially laughed at the police lineup.

-He he was not allowed a phone call or have a lawyer present while he was being questioned and asked to create evidence (!) to be used against him.

-No surveillance footage in the bank or any of the stores he supposedly robbed.

-The police took Fonda's fingerprints but didn't seem to check the note left by the robber for fingerprints to match them to.

-They never searched his home to find a gun he used in his robberies.

-The police judged his handwriting on the spot and did not seek the opinion of a handwriting expert.

-Even if Fonda and the real perpetrator look similar, surely the witnesses would be able to tell the difference in their voices.

I noticed during the trial that the police were going to lie in their testimony. The lawyer said that the police were saying Fonda told them during his interrogation that he was in deep debt to bookies for betting on the horse races and he needed to pay them back. Fonda never mentioned this and in fact said he casually bet on the races with a coworker every once in a while.

[–] ocalamike510 15 years ago

Well, remember, it was 1953 and not 2009; way pre-Miranda and all that. My late father, incidentally, was the co-worker who Manny bet horses with; he had to sign a Warner Brothers release so WB could not be sued or anything.