'Strangers On A Train' & ' The Wrong Man'

Alfred Hitchcock has 15 of his films included in the 1,001 list. I've now seen 14 of those. Shadow of the Doubt, the only hold out.

These two were very similiar to me in theme. Two innocent guys wrongly accused and as the tension and drama builds up we find resolution for our heroes. Meanwhile, both protagonists have faithful female partners that react differently to the issues of the film. In Strangers on a Train, Guy's girlfriend remains confident and poised as she helps reveal the real killer. Unlike The Wrong Man, we know who the killer is and he's easily hated.

In The Wrong Man, we don't know the real killer, but we're not supposed to hate him as much as we're supposed to hate the system that could nearly prosecute a man based merely on eye-witness accounts, which, as we now know, are worthless without substantial physical evidence.

Peter Fonda gives a fantastic performance in The Wrong Man as Manny. Probably one of the top two or three starring performances in Hitchcock's filmography. Fonda wasn't in as many Hitchcock films as Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant, but he was equally -- if not better -- as good.

What I loved about The Wrong Man is that Hitchcock gets me to believe, even if it was a thin suggestion, that Manny was actually guilty. I didn't realize the film was based on a true story, so the idea that Manny was wholly innocent never came into play. Yet, it was particularly clear that a man like Manny could not have done those crimes. Still. Back of my brain, I kept re-thinking things.