Alibi
1929 Directed by Roland West
Synopsis
Chick Williams, a prohibition gangster, rejoins his mob soon after being released from prison. When a policeman is murdered during a robbery, he falls under suspicion. The gangster took Joan, a policeman's daughter, to the theater, sneaked out during the intermission to commit the crime, then used her to support his alibi. The detective squad employs its most sophisticated and barbaric techniques, including planting an undercover agent in the gang, to bring him to justice.
Cast
Popular reviews
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Dire. When the first scene of the movie is a tracking shot to a line of chorus girls and eventually focuses on the most inept dancer you have ever seen, you know it’s downhill from here. This talentless, ham-fisted, frumpy bitch actually has a supporting role, which sets the bar very low for everyone else. However, they still manage to demolish any semblance of good acting. Chester Morris, who plays the gangster, is horrendous. As cardboard as the stage sets, he alternates between smugness and a perpetual scowl for most of the movie. At the end when his alibi is disproven, his personality completely changes unbelievably and he turns into a whimpering sap. The scene where he thinks he has…
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**Part of the Best Picture Project**
The "restoration" of this film was pretty terrible, and probably the worst job I've ever seen. The audio is still terrible and the film is scratched to pieces. What little I could watch of this unwatchable film is still bad with a boring storyline that only picks up for a brief two minute encounter.
It also features what is supposedly the longest death scene ever (5-7 minutes, but it felt like 15).
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I feel like I should be making allowances for this being one of the first talkies and a prototype of noir gangster flicks, but I just can't. The truth is, despite some innovative stylistic techniques, it's mostly incompetent. When the characters aren't speaking, it's perfectly fine (although it gets a bit cute with the sound effects, in the same way early 3D movies did with that particular novelty); when they are talking, it's amateur theater. And they do a lot of talking. Sound levels fluctuate to comic degrees, and dialogue flows like peanut butter. I dug Roland West's The Monster, and some of the oddball humor of that film is present here, but he hadn't learned to properly translate it to spoken dialogue, and the result is just awkward and clumsy.
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Dire. When the first scene of the movie is a tracking shot to a line of chorus girls and eventually focuses on the most inept dancer you have ever seen, you know it’s downhill from here. This talentless, ham-fisted, frumpy bitch actually has a supporting role, which sets the bar very low for everyone else. However, they still manage to demolish any semblance of good acting. Chester Morris, who plays the gangster, is horrendous. As cardboard as the stage sets, he alternates between smugness and a perpetual scowl for most of the movie. At the end when his alibi is disproven, his personality completely changes unbelievably and he turns into a whimpering sap. The scene where he thinks he has…
-
**Part of the Best Picture Project**
The "restoration" of this film was pretty terrible, and probably the worst job I've ever seen. The audio is still terrible and the film is scratched to pieces. What little I could watch of this unwatchable film is still bad with a boring storyline that only picks up for a brief two minute encounter.
It also features what is supposedly the longest death scene ever (5-7 minutes, but it felt like 15).