Alibi is a transitional film from the silent era to the sound era, and it manages to include some of the worst and the best elements of both periods of moviemaking. The sound quality at times is so bad that I couldn’t quite tell the name of a character, but at other times, we are able to hear a little bird chirping in a cage. The camera moves in ways that were common for silent films, with zooms and pans and such, but it also remains remarkably static when filming what seem to be an endless number of dance numbers involving chorus lines. The industry’s initial issues with sound recording and camera movement would be worked out eventually, so we have films like Alibi to thank for letting us see how rocky the transition was during those years.
The plot involves a gangster named Chick Williams (the handsome Chester Morris) who’s released from prison, only to fall back into his criminal ways. Of course, he tells his girlfriend (and future wife) Joan Manning that he’s completely clean. She was even with him on the night that some members of his gang committed a robbery and killed a police officer. In other words, she’s his alibi. Given that she’s also a policeman’s daughter and is also romantically entangled with a police detective, having such a solid alibi would seemingly clear Chick from any suspicion.
However, Joan’s father and the detective still suspect Chick’s involvement. Chick claims that the police planted guns on him in order to send him to prison for the last crime, and Joan (played ably by Eleanor Griffith) seems convinced enough that she agrees to marry Chick over her father’s objections – oh, and over the objections of her other boyfriend, the police detective, too. The police become very dogged in their attempts to find a connection between Chick and the murder of the police officer. Doing so, of course, gives Chick ample opportunity to claim that he’s being framed again.
The film displays a visual flair that was common among some of the best silent films. There are all sorts of interesting camera angles and intriguing uses of lighting to highlight (and obscure) objects on the screen. The styling is very Art Deco, and both the interior and exterior sequences are dazzling to observe. We also get lots of images of watches during the film, so many close-ups of watches, but they’re all important to the question of whether or not Chick could have made it to the scene of the robbery during the intermission of the play he attended with Joan. We even zoom in on a set of fingerprints at one point. It’s a shame that some of the visual acuity would be lost in the first years of sound films because of the difficulties associated with making sound pictures, but you can watch Singin’ in the Rain (1952) if you want a more entertaining depiction of that transition.
Alibi also keeps interrupting the plot with those aforementioned dance numbers. They don’t really contribute anything to the storyline, but I suppose it’s a way to use music and the sounds of tapping feet to demonstrate sound techniques. It’s also perhaps useful to place the action of the story in the night club where the gangsters hang out. However, given how badly the dance sequences are staged and how rigid the camera is during those numbers, it makes you wonder if they were truly significant enough to stay in the completed film. It might be better just to concentrate on the crime drama unfolding on the screen.
The film is based upon a play entitled Nightsticks, and I never knew until I watched this film that the police during that era used their nightsticks as signals to each other. Watching them tapping a distress call to other police officers was rather enlightening. Also, I was not aware that the police used Tommy guns. The Motion Picture Production Code would ban images of such weapons just a few years after the release of Alibi, so it’s intriguing to see them on the screen.
Joan Manning Williams is an intriguing character; she’s caught between a criminal and a police detective, making for a most unusual love triangle for the time period. She almost immediately believes Chick because, of course, she was with him on the night of the fatal robbery. She also loves him more than she does the police detective, or is she really more intrigued by his reputation as a gangster? Maybe she’s fallen in love with him because she sees someone whose life has been tragically altered by police suspicion? It’s never easy to tell, and Griffith is very good at playing with the ambiguity.
Interestingly, the police have infiltrated Chick’s gang with an undercover agent played by Regis Toomey. I think Toomey’s character is called Danny McGann when he’s a police officer, and he’s Billy Morgan when he’s with the gang, or maybe it’s the other way around. Again, the plot and the sound quality don’t do the audience many favors in this regard. Toomey has to play a drunk for much of the picture, and he’s very adept at it. When we as viewers realize that his character has also been performing as a drunk for most of the movie, it’s a nice meta moment, as people like to say. Toomey also gets quite the extended and effective death sequence for a supporting character after Chick shoots Danny/Billy in an attempt to escape.
The film’s ending is typical of crime films from this era. The bad guy has to pay with his life for the crimes he’s committed. Joan accidentally tips off the police as to Chick’s whereabouts, and he gives a big speech about what happened on the night of the killing—just so we as an audience get a sense of closure, I guess. There’s a standoff between him and the detective, but in what seems like the silliest scenario imaginable, Chick flicks off the light switch and escapes to the roof of the building. He dies by falling when he tries to jump from rooftop to rooftop. It’s not the most elegant way to get rid of a murderer, certainly, but it’s an effective enough way to end the movie.
Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Picture, Best Actor
(Chester Morris), and Best Art Direction
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