The third 'man' Herrmann wrote music for in 1956 was The Wrong Man. Based on a true story of mistaken identity and wrongful arrest, the film (shot in bleak monochrome with a documentary-like sense of realism) was an anomaly in the Fifties Hitchcock canon of glossy colourful suspense pictures. Although the director was dealing with familiar themes, his approach was quite radical. Even his normally playful cameo appearance (like an artist's signature in the corner of a canvas) was expanded into a direct-to-camera address to the audience before the main credits and shot in Expressionist silhouette.
Henry Fonda played the role of Manny Balestrero, a bass player in New York's Stork Club band, who is arrested on suspicion of robbery when he is falsely identified by a witness. The film charts his ordeal to clear his name and the disintegration of his marriage that resulted from the stress of the experience. Apart from a jaunty rhumba that opens and closes the film in a deliberate counterpoint to the unrelenting bleakness of the story, Herrmann scored the picture with a spare orchestration that is often reduced to a gnawing plucked double bass. Some of the cues ("The Cell II") scream with a tension that threatens to snap under the strain. Following Samuel Fuller's dictum ("Life's in colour, but black and white is more realistic."), Herrmann drained his orchestral palate and produced a work of musical monochrome.
Even though the full score runs to a modest thirty eight minutes, it can be a tough listen. Elmer Bernstein recorded the sassy prelude on his tribute disc to Herrmann, but for those with stout hearts you can get the original soundtrack on the FSM label (FSM Vol.9 No.7). Just make sure you don't leave any cut-throat razors lying about when you listen to it.
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