Date and Time
- Sunday, Feb 1, 2026 4pm
Details
Intro by film historian Steven C. Smith on Feb. 1. Smith's latest book “Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema” will be available for sale and signing.
Henry Fonda’s only film for Alfred Hitchcock is a uniquely sober retelling of true events by the typically sardonic director, experimenting in the neorealist style of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, which had recently impressed him. Stork Club bassist Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda) is mistakenly identified as a stickup man — he has the bad luck of being a dead ringer for the perp — and gets thrown into the slammer. Balestrero is confident that it is just a case of mistaken identity and will get sorted out in time, but his fragile wife (Vera Miles), shaken by the experience and convinced that their good name has been ruined, spirals into a dangerous depression. Composer Bernard Herrmann, in his third collaboration with Hitchcock, provides a pared-down score, evoking the jazz-tinged setting of this stylish docudrama.
