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Jason Isralowitz, "Nothing to Fear: Alfred Hitchcock and the Wrong Men" (Fayetteville Mafia Press, 2023)
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An interview with Jason Isralowitz
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- [00:00]
Marshall Po
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast, or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts, and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
Dan Moran
Hi, everybody. Welcome to New Books and Film, a podcast channel of the New Books Network. I'm your host, Dan Moran, and I am thrilled to be here today with Jason Israelowitz, author of Nothing to Fear, Alfred Hitchcock and the Wrong Men, just published in January 23rd by the Fville Mafia Press. Welcome, Jason.
- [01:25]
Jason Israelowitz
Oh, thanks very much for having me, Dan.
- [01:27]
Dan Moran
And before we start, I just want to say this book was an absolute pleasure from beginning to end. We've all read books about Psycho and North for Northwest, and those books are great, too. But I love the fact that you wrote an entire book about the wrong man.
- [01:38]
Jason Israelowitz
Oh, thanks so much. I appreciate the kind words, sir.
- [01:41]
Dan Moran
So the book jacket says you practice law, actually in Manhattan for almost 30 years. What kind? What kind of law?
- [01:46]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, I practice in an area that's known as motor vehicle franchise law, and that involves the relationship between auto manufacturers and their dealers. It's a very obscure area, but one that's very heavily regulated. All the 50 states have some type of dealer protection laws, and those laws are the bread and butter of my practice.
- [02:06]
Dan Moran
Okay, so it's unlike the lawyers we meet in the film and in the stories we read in your book.
- [02:10]
Jason Israelowitz
Correct. Totally unrelated.
- [02:12]
Dan Moran
And where'd you go to law school?
- [02:14]
Jason Israelowitz
University of Pennsylvania Law School.
- [02:15]
Dan Moran
Oh, great. Okay, so let's talk about the genesis of this book. Now, were you already an admirer of Hitchcock or, like, a film fan, like, before this book?
- [02:24]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, I've always loved the movies, and I've loved Hitchcock films in particular dating back to my college days when I was at Boston University as a freshman. Psycho was screened in my dorm on Halloween. And I still remember vividly the screams in that dorm, you know, that assembling of students that night. So I really first appreciated Hitchcock films just for pure entertainment and thrills. And, you know, Psycho is an example of that. But then as a young lawyer, I kind of revisited them with an eye towards the depiction of law and justice in those movies, which I think is a topic that Hitchcock was. Was, you know, fairly preoccupied with. And when I was much younger, that led to a writing project about Hitchcock's 1954 film Rear Window. It was a law journal article essentially arguing that the film can be seen as an exploration of the values that, you know, that underlie the Fourth Amendment and search and seizure and all that, and the tension between, you know, crime control, on the one hand, and privacy interests. I don't know if you've seen the.
- [03:27]
Dan Moran
Film, oh, a hundred times.
- [03:29]
Jason Israelowitz
Okay, So I don't know if you remember, but there's this great scene in which the Jimmy Stewart character is trying to convince his detective friend to search the apartment of Raymond Burr, the man he suspects of having murdered his wife.
- [03:41]
Dan Moran
Sure.
- [03:41]
Jason Israelowitz
And the detective is holding him off with some appeal to the requirement of search warrant and legal norms and all that. So, anyway, that was a really fun project. And after that, I entertained the idea of returning to the issue of legal themes in Hitchcock movies at some point.
- [03:58]
Dan Moran
Yeah, that's great. Because, of course, every window when Jimmy Stewart's giving that speech as an audience member, you're on Jimmy Stewart's side. But that's why hard cases make bad law. Right. Like, if the detective breaks the law, then. Well, then what about if Raymond Burr was innocent?
- [04:12]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly. And it's. It's. It's a fun scene because the detective is kind of the opposite of Dirty Harry in that.
- [04:17]
Dan Moran
Right.
- [04:17]
Jason Israelowitz
Actually the one who's being sensitive to the need for, you know, adherence to.
- [04:22]
Dan Moran
The Constitution, because movies have raised us on this idea that, like, the renegade cop who breaks the rules still gets the bad guy.
- [04:28]
Jason Israelowitz
Yes, exactly.
- [04:29]
Dan Moran
Right, absolutely. So. So you love Hitchcock. You see Psycho in college. You. You write this. You write this article about Rear Wind that at some point you're watching the wrong man. And what happens?
- [04:41]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, well, I had two very Strong reactions when I saw it, and I had seen it once in college, but to be honest with you, I didn't really have much of a memory of it. And then I saw it about. I don't know, it was about five years ago, and the first reaction was, boy, what a great film. I found it to be this very haunting and in many ways, heartbreaking story about the arrest of an innocent man and, you know, devastating consequences for him and his family. I think it displays Hitchcock's usual artistry as a director. I think it's anchored by these amazing performances by Henry Fonda and Vera Miles. So I thought it was a great movie experience, watching it as a first reaction. But my other strong reaction was, boy, I couldn't believe this movie was made in 1956. It felt very urgent, very timely given all the exonerations of the wrongfully convicted and the like last 25 to 30 years. And it seemed to have this really authentic depiction of the criminal justice system. So all these elements made me want to learn more about not only the making of the movie, but of the actual underlying case of the protagonist, Manny Balustraro, and what led to his arrest and prosecution. Even though he was innocent.
- [05:58]
Dan Moran
Yeah. And that kind of took on a life of its own, so to speak. Right. In your mind. And then it became the book.
- [06:03]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly five years later.
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Dan Moran
Here we are. So let's get into the book's organization. The first part of the book, you. So you mentioned Manny Balestrero, who's. Who's the Henry Fonda character, the protagonist, and he's the guy whose story you tell. But the first part of the book does not concern him. Right. We'll get to him in a bit. But the first part is a collection of these five representative examples of people who were in the 30s and the 40s, misidentified as criminals. Right. You have these people, Bertram Campbell, Elizabeth Lester, Philip Caruso, Louis Hoffner and Thomas Oliver. So talk for talk, if you can, about. I know you can, but talk about why you preface the look at Manny Balustraro with these five stories.
- [06:42]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, I took that approach because, you know, unfortunately, Manny's false arrest was not a one of a kind. It was really the result of a series of problems with the criminal justice system that had led to these earlier miscarriages of justice that you're referring to, and that, tragically, would plague the system well into the modern era. And one of these problems was the way the legal system treated eyewitness testimony. It was really seen as infallible at the time. And the identifications of the eyewitnesses were, for the most part, accepted by the authorities without much investigation. So that's one of the common links between those earlier cases that I talk about and Manny's ordeal. There was just no scrutiny of the eyewitness identifications. But there's a related link which lies in the procedures, the identification procedures that were used by the police time and again. In those cases, the suspects were subjected to unreasonably suggestive and prejudicial procedures. And it would be about 15 years after Manny's case that the supreme Court would recognize that the manner in which the police might present the suspect to the eyewitness in this kind of suggestive way would be an important factor that contributed to wrongful convictions. Now, you know, on a broader level, those earlier cases are also linked to Manny's case, I think, by a failure on the state's part to really reckon with their role, the role of the authorities in the actual wrongful convictions. The basic narrative in these cases was that these innocent people went to prison because of well meaning, sincere, but mistaken eyewitnesses. And they made this mistake that was brought on by this uncanny resemblance between the innocent person and the real culprit. But when you unpack what actually happened in those cases, which I talk about in the book, you'll see often there really was not much of a resemblance at all. And that there were these various institutional failures, kind of a rush to judgment, a failure to conduct a proper investigation, and in some cases, unfortunately, a real ignoring or suppressing of exculpatory information.
- [09:09]
Dan Moran
Yeah, I kept waiting for, like, none of these five stories are like a tale of two cities where these two guys happen to be doubles and could pass. Like they're not like that at all.
- [09:17]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly. In many cases, the suspect looked nothing like the actual culprit.
- [09:25]
Dan Moran
I want to ask you about. You talked about the identification practices. You talk in the book a lot about the difference between a show up and a lineup. And like, each of these forms. And we're. And it's funny because so much of this we've learned from movies like lineups. You think the poster of the usual suspects or something. Right. Can you talk about the difference between a show up and a lineup and the liabilities of each form of id?
- [09:46]
Jason Israelowitz
Sure. So a show up is the display of a suspect alone before the eyewitness. So, you know, the classic example of a show up would be that a detective has the suspect in custody and they bring the suspect before the eyewitness and they say, is this the man? And, you know, show ups have been widely condemned as, you know, inherently suggestive, because, you know, the basic problem is that when the police stage that kind of one on one confrontation, you know, they're essentially conveying their belief to the eyewitness that this is the man. So. And show ups were very common back in the days of Manny Balustraro, and in those earlier cases as well. Now, a lineup is the display of a suspect in a group, and the other people who are in the lineup with the suspect are known as fillers, basically. So lineups, you know, are understood to have the potential to avoid suggestiveness. The suggestions will show up, but only if certain precautions are taken. And historically, and, you know, especially during the era that I focus on in the book, lineups were, in some cases, staged just as suggestively as show ups. You know, for one thing, the fillers were often detectives, and little effort was made to make sure that the fillers looked something like the suspect. So it's sort of obvious to the eyewitness that the suspect stood out among the group.
- [11:17]
Dan Moran
You talk about how some. Some of the cop fillers had their uniform pants on.
- [11:21]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly, exactly. They often. The detectives often use other detectives or police officers to fill the lineup, and the uniforms were a pretty good giveaway. And then, of course, in the most extreme cases, the lineup included fillers who were known to the eyewitness. And Manny's case is an unfortunate example of that, because one of the crazy things about the way they staged lineup in Manny's case was they included in the lineup the husband of one of the eyewitnesses who was identifying him, which I think made the lineup a kind of farce, basically, as opposed to some genuine attempt to test the ability of the witness to recognize Manny as the holdup man.
- [12:04]
Dan Moran
Right. And yet those five stories, and each one of them you tell so compellingly, those five stories are filled with the phrase, oh, I'm absolutely sure this is the man, or I'm certain this is him. And again, these are not malicious people. These are people who are really trying to help. Right. So one of the big takeaways for that part of the book for me was that, you know, identifying people is like driving. Like, everybody assumes they're really good at it, or at least better than regular people. Right.
- [12:30]
Jason Israelowitz
Yes. That's a great comparison. There's really this awful certainty on the part of those eyewitnesses in these cases. And, you know, in some cases, it reflects just a false sense of confidence in Their own ability to perceive and their own. And their own memory. But, you know, you can see in other cases that they, you know, they gained that uncertainty because. Well, in some cases, because they were influenced by other eyewitnesses who made the same identification or because, you know, they were exposed to incriminating information about the suspect before they made the identification, so that the identification was essentially contaminated before it was even made. And that's really a recurring theme in the book, which is that the state has a role in a lot of these cases in creating or at least inflating the sense of certainty on the part of the eyewitness. But then later, when it turns out the identification was mistaken, the authorities blame the eyewitness and disown any responsibility for it.
- [13:31]
Dan Moran
Yeah, let's talk about that. That's a theme that runs through your book, right? You call it the institutional reluctance to admit error, for the state to admit that it was wrong. And what was interesting was. And I learned so much, you have this whole portrait of Governor Thomas Dewey and New York County DA Frank Hogan. They're very begrudging. They'll admit they were wrong, but they're begrudging in it. And I got the sense that when they vacated a ruling or did internal reviews, like when Hogan called upon this big internal review, that they were acting like people who apologize, as we all do sometimes. We're like, I'm sorry, but, you know, you were kind of being a jerk, or, I'm sorry, but. And you tell your kids, like, don't say, but just say, I'm sorry. Right.
- [14:08]
Jason Israelowitz
So.
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Dan Moran
So, you know, here's what might sound like a naive question. To what do you just ascribe this institutional reluctance to just say, we made a terrible mistake?
- [14:19]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, I mean, I think on one level, it just starts with basic human self interest. Right. Sending an innocent person to prison is just one of the most horrific things that can happen in society. You know, no one wants to take the blame for that. There's a natural reaction to deny mistakes, whether to protect, you know, your job or your reputation or, excuse me, or even your colleagues. You know, on an institutional level, I think this is true not only of police and prosecutors, but the courts. They all have an interest in assuring us that they are, you know, reliable dispensers of justice and in convincing us that when these mistakes happen, they were inevitable, they were unavoidable, they were an inevitable byproduct of the best available system we have, essentially. But when you look back at the first wave of wrongful convictions, that came to light in New York in the 40s and the 50s. There was a real opportunity to learn from those cases, to learn from the error, to make improvements in the system, if only there had been an honest reaction to them. And there was actually, as I talk about in the book, there was some fleeting attempt at reform. But, you know, in the end, the authorities. And again, it's not just the prosecutors or the police, but the courts as well. I think they were unwilling to face the mistakes in an honest way. And as a result, nothing changed in the years of running up to Mandy Balustero's unfortunate ordeal.
- [15:49]
Dan Moran
Yeah. Now let's talk about Mandy. Let's move on to his story, because his is his story inspired Hitchcock and eventually inspired you. What happened on July 9, 1952?
- [15:59]
Jason Israelowitz
Okay, so on that date, at around 12:30, there's a man who walks into the Prudential Insurance office in Jackson Heights, a neighborhood in Queens, New York. He has a coat draped over his arm, and he walks up to the cashier at the public window and he demands the cash in the drawer. And this cashier woman named Constance Ello notices the man is kind of waving his right arm. And she perceives that he has a gun, even though it's not visible, and immediately understands that this is a holdup. So she gathers up stacks of $5 bills, hands them over to the man. It amounts to about $200. Meanwhile, there was. Because it was a lunch hour, there were not a lot of people in the office, but there was another employee who kind of saw what was going on, heard this man say the word cash, and had a sense that something was wrong. So she goes into the office manager and says, I don't like the looks of this man. And the office manager comes out, but by this point, the holdup man has fled the office and has about $200 in cash. And this is one of two armed robberies that happen at this prudential office. The second one happens in December of 1952. And these are the robberies that the detectives would ultimately attribute incorrectly to Manny Balustraro.
- [17:24]
Dan Moran
Okay. Now, part of his story also involves his wife, Rose, who comes, plays by Vera Miles. In the film, you quote Manny as saying, she was my right hand, but she ended up in a sanitarium. So, like, what was the effect of Manny's trouble on the family?
- [17:39]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, so as by 1952, Rose and Manny had been married for about 20 years. And, you know, when Rose learned of the fault of the arrest, I mean, she was stunned. I mean, she could not believe it. She knew that Manny was not capable of committing crimes of this sort. And, you know, at one point, I think she told Manny that. Sorry. She told Manny's lawyer, Frank o', Connor, that Manny was the kind of personality that, you know, he would walk five blocks out of his way just to avoid an argument.
- [18:09]
Dan Moran
Right.
- [18:10]
Jason Israelowitz
Non confrontational. And at first, you know, after Manny's bailed out of prison, she's participating in this active way with the meeting, in the meetings with the lawyers. And she actually was the first person to remember the alibi that Manny had for the first robbery. But very quickly she becomes consumed with guilt. She blamed herself for the arrest. And the reason for that was that Manny had gone to the Prudential office to seek a loan. Rose had dental problems, and the dental problems were going to cost about $300, which was a lot of money. Manny was a musician at a good nightclub, but he wasn't making a fortune or anything. And Rose needed this dental work. And it was during the visit to the Prudential office when he went for a loan that Manny was first misidentified. So Rose developed this irrational sense of guilt that it was her fault that Manny was arrested. And this preyed on her and she became increasingly withdrawn, increasingly depressed, and ultimately she had this nervous breakdown. And by the end of 19th of February, which is only the month after the arrest. Arrest, she was moved to a sanitarium for mental health treatment. And she would remain there for well over two years.
- [19:34]
Dan Moran
Yeah. After. So Manny's eventually. And that's what Hitchcock movie tells the story. He's eventually exonerated, but it was still, you know, the ripple effects went on forever.
- [19:43]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly. I mean, the, the. Unfortunately for Manny, the ordeal did not end when he was finally exonerated. Being separated and the family remained fractured for, For a few years after that.
- [19:53]
Dan Moran
Yeah. Which of course is another. Which defies. Another thing we've learned from the movies is, well, at the end, you know, Richard Kimball finds the one armed man and he's not the fugitive anymore. And now it's great. Now he can be a regular guy. And this whole movie and the whole life stories you tell is like, no, that's not how it happens.
- [20:09]
Jason Israelowitz
Right. Certainly not a clean ending and certainly one to tell the story in that way and remain true to was very unconventional at the time. I mean, it would still be unconventional today, but certainly in the 1850s. Right.
- [20:25]
Dan Moran
Which is why it feel. It feels like a Hitchcock movie. But it doesn't in certain ways, like you keep waiting for These Hitchcockian twists and things like that, but he really tells the story of what happens to these human beings.
- [20:36]
Jason Israelowitz
Yes, it's very restrained. It really doesn't have. Even though I think from a filmmaking perspective, it has a lot of the Hitchcock touches in terms of some of the elements that you normally associate with Hitchcock. You know, escapism, adventure, suspense, set pieces. You know, you really don't get that in this movie because they were committed to being faithful to the facts of what actually happened.
- [21:00]
Dan Moran
All right, and let's. We'll talk about the film in a second. I want to get a couple more things about. About your research, you know, in the book that you interviewed Greg Balustraro, one of Manny's sons. Right. So. So what was he like? Like, what did he help you better understand about the case?
- [21:13]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, Greg was great. He spent a lot of time with me. He was only five at the time of the arrest in 1953. So he did not have a full understanding of what was happening at the time, but he did have some specific memories of the events. And, you know, they were sort of impressionistic. Like, Reg remembered the night that Manny didn't come home, and that was the night he was arrested in. In January of 53, when Manny was intercepted. As he was pulling out the keys and getting ready to enter his house, the detectives intercepted him, and they brought him down to the precinct. And when Manny didn't show up, I mean, Manny was this incredibly dependable guy. And so when Rose realized that he was, you know, he was not home anywhere near the time he should be, you know, panic started to set in at the home. And Greg remembered that there was a lot of crying in the house that night. So he had sort of these impressionistic memories. But one of the things that was extremely helpful was that Greg really walked me through his family history and helped me understand the experiences that informed Rose's reaction to Manny's arrest. And to go back to the question you were asking earlier, and a lot of this I don't think is well known, but Rose had experienced several different traumas in her life before this one. Her mother died when she was a freshman in high school, and, you know, she died of pneumonia. And Rose as a real drop that at school, then, you know, like, five years later, her brother died in a horrible car crash in Brooklyn. So. And there were other traumas. So she had seen a lot of loss and trauma in her life before this. And Greg said, you know, he referred to it as kind of having a fragile foundation by that point. So When Manny was arrested, you know, she was just undone by the prospect of being separated from Manny and, of course, the family being broken apart. Greg also really spoke very eloquently about the trauma of false arrest and how it affects the whole family, as you say, and that, you know, even after they were reunited, he had this fear throughout his childhood of being separated from his mother. And he said that that fear really stayed with him even as an adult. So, yeah, and Greg. Greg was great. Greg also told me a lot of interesting things about the. The kind of. The different experiences his parents had with the movie, because he said that, you know, Manny came to see the movie as a form of vindication.
- [23:51]
Dan Moran
Right.
- [23:52]
Jason Israelowitz
Because, you know, while for the most part, Manny's friends and family stood by him, when he was arrested and falsely accused, as Greg put it, there were some naysayers. And Manny, you know, saw this was, you know, in the most public way, a Hitchcock film that was going out, you know, all over the country.
- [24:10]
Dan Moran
Called the Wrong Man.
- [24:12]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly. So he. And he. As I understand it, he kind of, over time, he came to love the movie, and he would always show it. As he got older, he tried to show it to as many people as possible. Rose, on the other hand, never saw the film. She. She could never, you know, while she did make a recovery, you know, she never fully. She never could come to terms with what happened in a way that allowed her to revisit the events. And Greg said she went to her grave not knowing what was in the film.
- [24:41]
Dan Moran
Wow. And that's. You know, that line is so powerful in the film. When Henry Fonda meets the real guy, he says, do you know what you've done to my wife?
- [24:48]
Jason Israelowitz
Yes.
- [24:49]
Dan Moran
That's a big theme of the family. And what happened.
- [24:51]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly. And that's true to life, actually. That's actually what Manny said when he confronted the real culprit. Charles. Danielle.
- [24:59]
Dan Moran
So one more question about the Manny case before we get into Hitchcock, because I want to ask you about, like, a. A philosophical issue that you raised in the book that I thought was really interesting. This is not in the film, but. But. But Manny eventually tries to sue for compensation, as many of the falsely accused do, and you raise this problem. It's that we side with the people who have been falsely imprisoned. Right. And we think, yeah, like, compensate them, like, they deserve it. They've gone through hell. This is terrible. How can they not be compensated? But then you point out, and I love this, that people can't just be compensated because someone made a false identification. There have to there has to have been malice in making the id. Right. And here's a quote from your book I'd like to get your reaction to. You say this quote. On the one hand, false arrest is a horrific wrong that cries out for compensation. On the other hand, every free society needs the cooperation of its citizens to police crime. Talk about that delicate balance.
- [25:55]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah. So there are really two different scenarios that raise this issue. You know, one is if we take Manny's case, where the victim of false arrest would sue another private party, like an eyewitness, for instigating the arrest or the prosecution. So in Manny's case, as you say, after he was exonerated, he sued Prudential.
- [26:15]
Dan Moran
Prudential, right.
- [26:16]
Jason Israelowitz
And the Prudential employee who signed the criminal complaint, the woman Constance Ello, I mentioned earlier, and tried to get compensation.
- [26:25]
Dan Moran
For.
- [26:27]
Jason Israelowitz
His suffering, for Rose's suffering. And under the law at the time, and I think it still is, that the bar for establishing liability against a private party in that scenario is understandably high for the reasons you say, which is if a citizen sincerely believes that a crime has been committed and they supply information of that crime, about that crime to the police, you know, it's problematic to hold that person liable if it turns out that something is wrong and it leads to a mistake in arrest. So it would really have a chilling effect. Right. People would be very. If they had a sincere good faith belief that they could identify someone as a criminal, but, you know, would face, you know, massive liability if they were wrong, that would discourage people from coming forward. So that's why that malice standard applies. And, you know, typically, what that meant for Manny in terms of what his. His hurdle was for that lawsuit was he would have to make a showing that the Prudential eyewitnesses either, you know, knew what they were doing was false or they were doing it, you know, recklessly in some fashion. Now, the other scenario, of course, is that the victim of mistaken identity, like Manny may sue the state. Right. And today, in many states, including New York, there are statutes on the books that authorize the wrongfully convicted to sue and recover compensation. And in that scenario, there's no requirement of malice. But, you know, first of all, the laws were not as developed at the time when Manny's case happened. But also more, you know, equally important, you know, Manny was never convicted. He was. He was arrested, he was indicted, he was tried. Ultimately, the case ends in a mistrial, and he was never convicted. And there were really. So when he brought an action against the city of New York, which he ultimately did as well. Kind of faced a similar obstacle, which is just as the legal standards protected the eyewitnesses in false arrest cases, they protected the state and the police officers. And there's no liability in those false arrest cases unless the victim can show that the police had no reasonable basis for making the arrest. And the law also said if there was an eyewitness identification, that gave the witness a reasonable basis to the arrest. So it was kind of this, you know, this problem that the eyewitnesses were protected from the false arrest theories and the police were protected. And as a result, Manny had a lot of challenges in that lawsuit and ultimately wound up settling it for a relatively minor amount, given all his suffering and Rose's suffering.
- [29:09]
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- [29:35]
Dan Moran
Yeah. And you talk about that in the previous five cases, too, about, like, somebody gets $75 for all their suffering, and, like, the dates of the statute of limitation had run out, so the governor has to, you know, change the date. How far back you can go and sue because of your troubles.
- [29:48]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, it was really astonishing how meager some of the compensation was. And part of that was, you know, goes back to the point you made earlier about the institutional reluctance to admit error. You know, in some ways, part and parcel of the. The attempt to deflect blame on the eyewitnesses was this sense that, okay, well, we don't really have a moral obligation to fully compensate you for this absolutely horrific wrong that's been committed.
- [30:16]
Dan Moran
Right. And like you say, like, that's what I think is so interesting about it, because people are already reluctant. Like, the people will already say things like, well, I don't want to get involved. I. I don't want to get involved. Right. That's a normal human reaction. But if that. Imagine if that got chilled, then it'd be. No, imagine how much harder it would be to prosecute actual criminals.
- [30:33]
Jason Israelowitz
That's exactly right.
- [30:34]
Dan Moran
Yeah. All right, so let's move on to the film. Now, let's talk about Hitchcock's handling of this. So you point out in the. In the. The part about Hitchcock that, you know, he loves this Idea of the falsely accused protagonist. Right. It's one of his favorite plot elements. You go through all the movies in it. Probably the most famous example of a falsely accused protagonist is Northboro Northwest. Right. Cary Grant raises hand at a restaurant. Are you George Kaplan? Yes. And then. And then. But the experience of watching north by Northwest is completely the opposite of the experience of watching the Wrong Man. Right. How so?
- [31:08]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, well, north by Northwest is just, you know, classic escapist.
- [31:12]
Dan Moran
Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.
- [31:13]
Jason Israelowitz
Hitchcock called it a fantasy. And it's an example of his use of the wrong man premise as, you know, a springboard for adventure. Right, right. I think he. And he said this. He recognized that false accusations, you know, everyone can identify with the ide being falsely accused. And he saw it as a really good engine for the plot. Right. For action and suspense pictures. And he returned to it over and over again. Actually said at one point that. That north by Northwest was essentially an American version of 39 steps. 39 steps, exactly. Thank you. From 1935. And, you know, screenwriter fall north by Northwest. This was going to be the Hitchcock pictured. End all Hitchcock. And they had these amazing set pieces at the UN and the Grand Central Station. And then of course, the Mount Rushmore scene at the end. But as you say, you know, the Wrong man has none of the exhilaration, none of the thrills of these other mistaken identity pictures. It's really a film that explores the, you know, just the horror and devastation of false arrest. So while north by Northwest puts Cary Grant on this kind of cross country chase and has all this glamour associated with it, you know, the Wrong man is a very authentic depiction of what Manny Balustraro went through. And, you know, there's one scene in particular that I think captures the difference between the Wrong man and these other movies. You know, it's the scene when Manny is bailed out of prison and we see him, you know, reunite with Rose and return home. And, you know, Henry Fonda is terrific in the sequence, but, you know, he's very unsteady on his feet. He just looks shell shocked and he can't do anything other than basically retreat to his bed. And, you know, one of his sons comes in in the bedroom and speaks to him for the first time since the arrest. And, you know, Hitchcock gives us this very touching composition where, you know, Manny is lying down and he's looking up at his son almost for emotional support. You know, it's like this inversion of the normal positioning of parent and child in that situation. And you get the sense that you know, Manny is. Is going through this ordeal that's the equivalent of, you know, being run over by a train. And, you know, this is not going to be someone who is now, you know, instantaneously going to get out of prison. Like, you know, Richard Kimball and the fugitive are, you know, hunting for. For the actual. Right man.
- [33:36]
Dan Moran
Right. Yeah. It's so funny you said the word ordeal, because watching Northwest, anyone would want to be Carrie Grant. Like. Like, you. Like, who wouldn't do that? You go on the. With the crop duster, you're like, whatever, I'm Carrie Graham. Like, no one could touch me. But nobody wants to be Henry Fonda in this film.
- [33:51]
Jason Israelowitz
That's exactly correct.
- [33:52]
Dan Moran
So let's talk about Henry Fonda, because I learned a lot from your book about how Henry Fonda was cast. And. And I heard that I never heard this unbelievable story you tell about how Fonda saw a lynching when he was 14 years old. So what do you think it is about Henry Fonda? Who? You know, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, you know, they were like serial actors in Hitchcock. But this is Henry Fonda's one spot. Right. Why do you think Henry Fonda is so well suited to this part?
- [34:17]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, well, at the time he was cast by Hitchcock, he had been acting for about 20 years, and he had this unparalleled track record of these great performances in social justice films. You know, his most famous, I think, to that point was probably as Tom Joad in the Grapes of Wrath. But he'd also played innocent men who had been falsely accused of crimes in other movies. There was you Only Live Once, which is kind of an early version of Bonnie and Clyde. There was that movie Let Us Live. You know, he played Abe Lincoln defending innocent men of murder. And young Mr. Lincoln he played in the Oxbow Incident. That Western.
- [34:59]
Dan Moran
Sure, yeah. About the mob, Right, exactly.
- [35:02]
Jason Israelowitz
He plays his drifter, gets caught up with a lynch mob. And as you suggest, there's a connection between these movies and Fonda's own history. The incident you're referring to as a boy, he witnessed this, you know, unspeakably horrific murder of a black man named Will Brown in Omaha in 1919. And it was really a mass crime. Brown was being held in the courthouse. Henry Fonda's father was a printer who owned a shop that overlooked the courthouse square. And essentially, like 4,000 people gathered in, overran the courthouse and took this Will Brown out of the courthouse, seized him, lynched him, mutilated him. Absolutely horrible. There's actually a really good biography of Fonda. That really delves into this incident. It's called the man who Saw a Ghost by Devin McKinney, and it explores the connection between this incident and the theme of mob justice in Fonda's films. So when Fonda was cast as Manny Balustraro, Hitchcock knew that he'd have this screen Persona coming out of these other movies that I mentioned and that audiences would be able to identify with Manny. You know, he was. You'd be drawn in by his basic decency and integrity that he projects on screen. At the same time, it's a very naturalistic performance, and I think that's part of what gives a movie a lot of authenticity, that he really just disappears into the role of Manny. And interestingly, I think when he does that, he does suppress some of the other traits that you might see in some of these other Fonda films. So take Grapes of Wrath. He has that eloquent soliloquy at the end. So he's got eloquence, he's very defiant. And while I think he projects basic decency in that role, lurking beneath the surface as a sense of danger. You know, he had gotten out of prison. Tom Joad had gotten out of prison after committing manslaughter. And, you know, you don't see any of that.
- [37:12]
Dan Moran
No, he just wants it to go away.
- [37:14]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly, exactly. I mean, Manny was a relatively passive character and. And I think that was true to both Manny's life and to, you know, the. The horror of going through the experience of being falsely arrested and prosecuted.
- [37:29]
Dan Moran
Yeah. If it were. If it were a lesser film or if it were fiction with a weaker minded director, it would have ended with Mandy starting, like, some kind of fun to help. To get lawyers to help the false accused. And it would get, like, the credits rolling at the end to tell, you know, in 1967. But he just wants. He wants the movie to be over.
- [37:46]
Jason Israelowitz
Right, right. That's absolutely right.
- [37:48]
Dan Moran
So let's talk about the movie as a movie. I want to. I want to read another quotation of yours. You say, quote, the wrong man is remarkable for what it withholds. And I thought that was really interesting. Right. Because there's no big courtroom reversal. We get a court scene, but not the big reversal. Right. We don't get fancy lawyering. Like, it's not like watching Anatomy of a Murder or Witness for the Prosecution or something. There's no plot twist, like I said, other than the real guy being found. Like, I thought to myself, the real plot twist would be if Manny actually did it like that. Would be like the. You know, it's not. We mentioned the Fugitive. It's not exhilarating like a fugitive. Right. There's no action. You said before, there's no set pieces. Right. So we. We love that about the film. That. That kind of makes this film stand out. Right. What did the original viewers think?
- [38:33]
Jason Israelowitz
Well, based on the box office receipts, at least, audiences were really not prepared for the restraint and the realism of the film. I think when you look at the marketing of the film, it may have been a case of disappointed expectations. Martin Scorsese has pointed out that at that time, Hitchcock was so popular, he was like a franchise like Marvel is today. And there'd be one or new two Hitchcock films every year. And most of them, like, if you look at the other movie that Hitchcock released in 1956, when the wrong man came out, was the man who Knew Too Much with Jimmy Stewart. Again, another adventure with elements of escapism and mystery and suspense. And then on top of that, at that time, he had recently come to television with the Alfred Hitchcock Presents Anthology show. And By December of 1956, when the wrong man was released, that was like the fourth highest rated TV show. And that typically had elements of mystery and humor, and it always would often end with a twist of some sort. So you had people who were kind of expecting certain kind of entertainment from Hitchcock. And then you also had the marketing of the film. Like, if you go back and watch the trailer, you know, big words across the screen, moment in the Wrong man, and a tourney of suspense. And there was posters that, you know, implied that the movie was going to be about Henry Fond and Vera Miles going on a hunt for the right man.
- [40:07]
Dan Moran
Right.
- [40:08]
Jason Israelowitz
And, you know, so. So the. The marketing stoked some of the expectations here in a way that probably led people to be somewhat disappointed because obviously they got this very, you know, bracing and. And at times grim depiction of what it's like to be falsely prosecuted. The Wrong man just doesn't have the elements that people, for the most part, associated with Hitchcock. And it wound up only making about $1.2 million. And just by way of comparison, north by Northwest made, I think, over 6 million.
- [40:39]
Dan Moran
Right. I love what you said about. You're led to believe that it's going to be Manny and Rose going on this hunt for the real guys. But because, of course, in the film, when they go back to the country estate where they stayed and played cor cards, I forgot what town it's in, but they go back there and it's just a dead End like, well, he died. Okay. Like you're not supposed to have, you're not supposed to have scenes in films that just lead to, that are just cul de sacs.
- [41:02]
Jason Israelowitz
Right.
- [41:03]
Dan Moran
But that's what life is like.
- [41:04]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly. When they go to the. Cornwall. Right, Cornwall and find out that two of the.2 of the alibi witnesses had died. Which actually is. Is true. Yeah, they did die. Although Hitchcock here, while I think overall by Hollywood standards does an amazing job of being faithful to the facts, this is where Hitchcock does, you know, kind of amp up the, the problems that Manny had because there were some other alibi witnesses that Manny's lawyer was, was able to get statements from.
- [41:39]
Dan Moran
Right, right. Let's talk about. We talked about Rose earlier. We talked about Henry Fonda playing Manny. Let's talk about Vera Miles playing Rose. Right. So it's funny that if you're a first time viewer, you know, the Rose pl like subsumes the nanny plot. Like all of a sudden it's almost like you've changed channels a slight bit in the middle of the film. And now you're watching this other film about an emotional breakdown. Right. And you point out that some viewers complained about that, but you also point out that she serves as kind of like I took her as like a Greek chorus or something. She says to him, no matter how innocent you are or how hard you try, they'll find you guilty. So, so what's your take on how Hitchcock handles the Rose part of the story?
- [42:18]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, so Hitchcock seemed really fascinated by the story of Rose's breakdown. And when you, you know, there's some correspondence available showing the evolution of the, of the script going back and forth between Hitchcock and one of the co screenwriters, Maxwell Anderson. And you can see in that correspondence that Hitchcock very consciously wanted to shift the film's focus from Manny's criminal case to Rose's breakdown. I think that Rose's story actually deepens the film's themes about injustice on a couple of different levels. You know, for one thing, it is Hitchcock paying attention to the family trauma of false arrest like no film had ever done as far as I can recall. You know, now it's, it's very widely recognized that family members of the falsely accused, you know, may suffer depression or other problems with. But I think the Wrong man was really ahead of its time in exploring that. But to your specific point, there's that memorable scene when Rose really does hit an emotional breaking point and she seems to lose all hope. And it's that scene when she articulates the idea that Manny is experiencing some form of frame up, essentially that the state is going to put him in prison no matter what, no matter how innocent he is. And, and what I think was, I found so fascinating about that is I think that's the only time in the film when a character criticizes the justice system, at least expressly. And, you know, on one level, I think Hitchcock was playing with irony there because, you know, Rose is about to be sent to a sanitarium. But of course, there's an insanity inherent in the state's prosecution of an innocent person.
- [44:04]
Dan Moran
Right.
- [44:05]
Jason Israelowitz
And what Rose is saying here on one level is really accurate. The state really ignored Manny's alibis and all kinds of evidence of Manny's innocence. So the state, you know, she's saying basically, hey, it doesn't really matter what the evidence shows, you're going to be found guilty. I think that theme is actually echoed later. I don't know if you remember, there's. After Rose is brought to the sanitarium and Manny, you know, in a devastating scene, has to leave her there and he walks out. And then there's a visual transition and all of a sudden we're inside the courthouse and suggestion is, you know, something insane is going on in the courthouse. You know, given that we've got an innocent man here. I think the other thing that's really interesting about the dialogue that you mentioned is, you know, this movie was made at a time when that Hays Code, which is, you know, was still in effect. And that was before the modern rating system. And, you know, the code which was essentially a mechanism for censorship. Right. For this production code administration. You know, they had all these standards and that, you know, the movies had to be submitted to this production code administration beforehand. And it required, among other things, the positive portrayal of the justice system. That was one of the norms in this. In this whole system. So in a way, I think the film is, you know, using the COVID of Rose's breakdown to include some fairly scathing comments that Vera Miles makes about Manny's prosecution. And maybe otherwise they would have caught the attention of the censorship board. But because it's coming up in the context of a character that is having this breakdown, I think it sort of. It didn't touch the nerve of.
- [45:50]
Dan Moran
That.
- [45:50]
Jason Israelowitz
The Hays Code was really normally focused on.
- [45:53]
Dan Moran
Yeah, Hitchcock stays like 1 degree from the line.
- [45:57]
Jason Israelowitz
Right, right, exactly.
- [46:00]
Dan Moran
I love how you also compare the film to Zodiac, which is another, because I remember when I emailed you and I said, wow, not a lot of people, you know, love the Wrong Man. And when I read about, like, Zodiac is the same kind of thing. It's not a film that people, you know, love, but I think it's a terrific film. That's David Fincher's 2007 film about the Zodiac killer. And I think when I read that, I'm like, that is a perfect comparison. So why? What makes these films so alike?
- [46:25]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, so Zodiac is about this hunt for a serial killer who terrorized Northern California in the late 60s and into the 70s. It attracts a couple different characters who become obsessed, really, with the case, including a cartoonist played by Jake Gyllenhaal. And I was working on the book, and I took a night off and watched Zodiac, which I hadn't seen in a while. And I noticed the scene where the Gyllenhaal character is watching TV and there's a poster for the wrong man hanging out. And the poster has a very appropriate tagline. It says, you know, somewhere. Somewhere out there, there must be the right man. And so, I mean, this was obviously no accident that David Fincher put that poster in the scene. I mean, I think on one level, he was referencing the wrong man because both films are united in their fidelity to the facts. You know, one of the things I came away with after researching this book is that that Hitchcock and his team did just a tremendous amount of research in their pursuit of authenticity and to try to present May's ordeal in a way that was very faithful to what actually happened. You know, and they interviewed witnesses. They interviewed, obviously, Manny and Rose. They interviewed the judge in the case. They interviewed the psychiatrist who treated Rose. I mean, went on and on. There's a lot of material, Wrong man files and the archives. And from what I've read about Zodiac, Fincher and his screenwriter James Vanderbilt had just exhaustively tracked down everyone who had any connection to Zodiac. The witnesses, the detectives, the victims. I think they spent like a year and a half in pre production doing all that research. So, you know, there's that connection, but I think there are also thematic connections between the two films. You know, in the Wrong man, the detectives, you see, essentially close the case without having undertaken any real investigation, and they condemn Manny as guilty based in part on this. I think it's this kind of illogical interpretation of handwriting evidence when Manny gives handwriting samples. You know, in Zodiac, we see these detectives pursue just endless leads, and they're sorting through conflicting pieces of evidence without any real resolution. You know, at one point, they seem to make a breakthrough and have a suspect that they really think is the killer. But there are always these nagging doubts. And for that suspect, you know, they can't match the handwriting to the Zodiac killer's notes. You know, this uncertainty becomes kind of maddening for the characters and in some way frustrating as you're watching the movie. And there's this real tension, this constant tension between the desire for resolution, but then they need to meet the legal standards for an arrest. And in that movie, the characters, the detectives are really taking that seriously, and we see how hard it is to close the case. There's a point. There's a great essay that a UT Austin professor named Martin Kevorkian has written about this whole theme in Zodiac. So, yeah, I thought Zodiac was a really interesting reference point for the Wrong Man. And Fincher, I think, has said that Hitchcock was a big influence on him generally.
- [49:35]
Dan Moran
Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. There's that great point in Zodiac where one of the victims who's still alive, he's asked, how certain are you? And I wanted to 10 that, you know, he shows the picture that this is the man who attacked you, and he says something like seven, and the film just ends. And that goes against. Like you said, the cops have to do what. What. What's required legally. But I love how David Fincher, he goes against what's almost air quotes required as a movie director, which is that the credits come on and they never catch him. And that's it.
- [50:04]
Jason Israelowitz
Right. There's a sense of a lack of resolution. Kind of left a little bit with that sense in the Wrong man as well. Because, you know, even though there's a postscript script that tells you that the family is ultimately reunited and Rose gets out of the sanitarium, the last thing you see on the screen is Manny still being separated from Rose.
- [50:22]
Dan Moran
Yeah.
- [50:23]
Jason Israelowitz
And so I think there's a tonal similarity in. In the emotional experience you have to both movies, Right.
- [50:29]
Dan Moran
It's not a happy ending.
- [50:30]
Jason Israelowitz
Right.
- [50:31]
Dan Moran
Regardless of what. What's up on the screen.
- [50:33]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly.
- [50:35]
Dan Moran
One thing that struck me when watching the. Watching the Rug man to prepare for this talk was how often Mandy goes along with the cops. And the cops are very impersonal at best. And I think a viewer today might say, well, like, why is he. Why didn't he get a lawyer? Right. All the things, again, we've learned from movies, right? Why doesn't get a lawyer? Why is he going along with this? The cops say, go walk into the liquor store that he's never been into before. He go walk there, walk to there and walk back. And then it dawns on You. Because it dawned on me, I'm like, wait a minute. This was 10 years before Miranda. This is 10 years before the Miranda decision. And that it's almost like the film was a time capsule that we watch and say, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? But it shows you, like, how people used to think about the whole experience.
- [51:19]
Jason Israelowitz
Of being arrested exactly as you say. Ten years before Miranda, the law did not require detectives to notify Manny of his right to an attorney, his right against self incrimination. It was also a little less than 10 years before the Supreme Court's ruling in this related case called Escobedo, which is the one that established that a suspect in custody has a Sixth Amendment right to counsel. So we're really seeing events play out before the legal landscape on custodial interrogations would change. On the other hand, and this is a little bit of a twist in the research, I think one can reasonably ask whether the events that occurred that are depicted in this movie would have played out that much differently if it had occurred after the Miranda ruling. Because I was looking at a number of studies when I was working on the book, and they have shown that innocent people are more likely to waive their Miranda rights than the guilty. And the reason for that, based on the interviews of the people who participated in these studies, is that they believe they have nothing to hide and as a result, nothing to fear. Which is interesting, because the idea that the innocent have nothing to fear is what the detectives keep assuring Manny in the film. And Manny is clearly, unfortunately, of this belief that his own innocence will essentially set him free. So. So it would be interesting to think. It's interesting to think about whether even if he had been given his Miranda rights, whether he would have behaved any differently that entire interrogation sequence.
- [52:46]
Dan Moran
Right. Because you want to help the police.
- [52:48]
Jason Israelowitz
Exactly.
- [52:49]
Dan Moran
That's what he wants. Right. So let's bring this all together. So some of your conclusions about the problems with eyewitness testimony are found in a report by a team of legal experts. You quote at the end, and I want to read it here, you say, quote, this is from the. The legal experts. By the time of trial, an eyewitness's memory has almost invariably been contaminated by a variety of factors and is therefore highly error prone. Now, anybody who reads your book, anybody who even watches the wrong man, is like, yep, I totally got it. Like, the point made.
- [53:21]
Jason Israelowitz
Right, Right.
- [53:22]
Dan Moran
But is there still a place for eyewitness testimony?
- [53:26]
Jason Israelowitz
I think so. I mean, the reality is that in some cases, eyewitness testimony is indispensable. And I think it would obstruct legitimate prosecutions to try to ban it outright. In fact, one of the more interesting findings from that study that you mentioned is that if eyewitness identification evidence is handled properly and it's treated with sort of the same sensitivity as, like, other kinds of forensic evidence, it may be potentially reliable. You know, there are studies that indicate that if a proper procedure is used, and, of course, that's a big if at the first time the eyewitness identification is made, it may provide reliable information. It's just that after that first test, the witness's memory becomes contaminated. And that's what the study really gets into, is that the ability of the eyewitnesses to make a reliable identification erodes over time. And there have been, you know, as these. As the DNA revolution has, you know, led to all these exonerations of the innocent. Over the past 30 years, there have been studies that have gone back and looked at kind of what went wrong in these cases. And there have been a lot of these cases, these wrongful convictions where someone was sent to prison based on testimony given at trial that was absolutely unqualified. The eyewitness was on the stand and identified the defendant sitting at the council table with no hesitation whatsoever. But when the people conducting the studies went back and looked at the record, they were finding that a lot of these cases, either at the first confrontation, the identification was not made, or it was made with low confidence. And so I think that one of the problems you see in a lot of these cases is that the state is relying on an eyewitness who may have. Have either not made the identification or hesitated at first, but through various suggestive procedures that occurred over time, the witness sort of became more certain than they really were.
- [55:34]
Dan Moran
Yeah, they talked themselves into it.
- [55:36]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah.
- [55:37]
Dan Moran
Last question. I can't resist asking you this. So, you know, if you're. If you're a detective and you watch detective films, you're going to have a different experience than someone who's not a detective. I am not a lawyer. You are. What are some other movies you love about that deal with the law? Because it must be interesting to be a lawyer and watch, because, again, the country is filled with people who assume they know everything about the law, who have never gone to law school, but just because they learn from movies. Right? So you talk in the book about how 12 Angry Men is like the. You call it like the spiritual sequel to the Wrong Man. What are some of your favorite legal movies or movies you think that like, actually raise interesting legal questions.
- [56:13]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah. Well, I'll start with one. Just growing up, just as an influence. I don't know if you've ever seen the 1982 film the Verdict.
- [56:22]
Dan Moran
Love it. Backwards and forwards. Memorized it. Yeah.
- [56:24]
Jason Israelowitz
I think that's a great courtroom drama with this amazing performance by Paul Newman. And I watched that over and over again. You know, that was on cable not too long after we got it for the first time as I grew up in New Jersey. So I just watched that over and over. I think another great film, and now we're kind of in the early 90s, is in the Name of the Father.
- [56:42]
Dan Moran
Sure.
- [56:45]
Jason Israelowitz
You know, about the man, the young man in Belfast who's falsely accused of involvement in this IRA terrorist bombing. You know, in some ways, it's kind of like the Verdict in that it's as much a character study as it is a legal drama. But I think that's very powerful and a very interesting movie to watch after you see the Wrong man, because obviously it deals in a lot of the same themes. You know, for the last one, I'll give you another Hitchcock, which is another one I had seen when I was young, but only revisited while I was working on this project, which is I Confess with Montgomery Clift.
- [57:17]
Dan Moran
Right. Yeah.
- [57:18]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah. I think that's a very striking movie also made in the 50s. It was actually made in 1953, the year that Manny was arrested, about a priest who hears a murderous confession and then he becomes the chief suspect in the murder. So those are a few. But there are a lot of great films. It's obviously a genre that Hollywood returns to over and over again. How about yourself? What's your favorite?
- [57:40]
Dan Moran
Well, you said the Verdict, and that is right out there. I mean, that is. You know, and it's got so much, much more of the. You know, he says. Paul Newman says that a jury, like, do good. Here's your chance to do something good. And this might sound corny, but I was on a jury once for a federal case, and I thought of that movie because, you know, sometimes people get tired on juries. They complain. But I'm like, no, this is like a big. This is like a big responsibility. I love that. I love. I'm not sure how, quote, unquote, real it is. I love Anatomy of a Murder for some of. Because it's messy. Because you're not really sure about Lee Remnick and. And John Cassavetes and. And was Jimmy Stewart taken for a ride? And. And. And so I love. And that was written by a judge, actually. So that's kind of an interesting window into it.
- [58:21]
Jason Israelowitz
Yeah, that's a great film. And I think that one also is a pretty edgy film. Yeah, we're a little ahead of their time for the late, right?
- [58:28]
Dan Moran
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jason, it was an absolute pleasure speaking to you today. Everybody should go out and get your book. Nothing to Fear, Alfred Hitchcock and the Wrong Man. It will definitely make you want to watch the Wrong man again. I can't recommend it hardly enough. Jason Israelowitz, thank you so much for being on the show.
- [58:43]
Jason Israelowitz
Thanks so much for having me. It was really my pleasure.