Best Pictures #19: 1928-29 (2nd) Academy Awards Outstanding Picture Nominee, Alibi (1929)

by A.J.

Best Pictures #19: 1928-29 (2^nd) Academy Awards Outstanding Picture Nominee

Alibi (1929)

I didn’t have a very difficult time finding a copy of Alibi on VHS, but the DVD seems to have gone out of print. However, Alibi is readily available on DVD as part of the collection of early Academy Award Best Picture nominees, The Envelope Please Vol. 1 (which also includes the rare silent Best Picture nominee, The Racket). The home video cover art for Alibi bears a quote from the New York Times declaring, “It is by far the best of the gangster films.” I’m not well acquainted with other gangster films of this time period, but I think it is safe to say that audiences at the time had not seen a crime film quite like this one.

Alibi stars Chester Morris as Chick, a criminal recently released from prison who uses his date with a policeman’s daughter as his alibi for the murder of a police officer. The policeman’s daughter, Joan, believes in giving people second chances and that the police will railroad people just to get a conviction. Her view of the police comes off as rebellious until the film proves her correct, which is what sets Alibi apart from the other gangster films of this era that I have seen. The Racket had corrupt cops and good cops. Nearly every cop in Alibi is a corrupt brute, and the criminals are portrayed just as negatively. The police suspect Chick instantly of the murder of the patrolman based on no evidence, just prejudice, and go about bullying people into naming Chick as the murderer. In one scene two policemen first threaten to frame a random ne'er-do-well for the murder if he doesn’t name Chick; then they threaten to kill him.

Just about every character in Alibi is one dimensional. Once the movie reveals whether or not Chick is the murderer, he, and the movie, become far less interesting. There is one wholly good police officer named Tommy, who is also a suitor of Joan. Though his character ultimately emerges as the hero of the movie, he is also a very bland character. The only continuously interesting character in this movie is Danny, a clichéd drunk played by Regis Toomey, who is friends both with gangsters and cops. He decides to be an informant for the police and is at the center of the most tension filled scene in the movie.

Alibi indulges the new spectacle of sound with as much enthusiasm as other early sound films. Though not a musical, there are more than a few song and dance numbers in the scenes at the nightclub hangout of the gangsters. The film’s opening scene is loaded with sounds: a prison guard twirling his nightstick, a chiming bell, and every step of marching prisoners lining up for roll call. The sound quality of the DVD is mostly good, but becomes spotty at times and even cuts out completely for a moment or two.

Alibi is a visually impressive film and received an unofficial nomination for Art Direction for its bold and stylish art deco sets. City streets rush toward us in a POV of a speeding car. In one scene a character attempts to leap from the roof of one skyscraper to the next only to fall to his death and the effect is pretty impressive. The camera even moves a little bit more than the other early sound movies I’ve seen. In one shot the camera pushes through a crowded nightclub to a line of singing and dancing chorus girls. Perhaps most notable and interesting of all is Alibi's use of light and shadow giving it a look that would become a staple of crime movies and become woven into the fabric of Film Noir.

Alibi certainly feels like an early sound film, as though it is still trying to figure out the best way to use dialogue, images, and sound effects to tell a story. It feels edgy due to the harsh and blatantly negative portrayal of the police, which I admit had me stunned. This is a Pre-Code film, so the strict and puritanical Hays Code censoring and restricting a film's content was not yet being enforced. That edgy portrayal of cops and criminals is Alibi’s defining trait but also its primary flaw. With both cops and criminals equally bad and despicable (except for the one good, bland cop) there is no one to root for. Some aspects of Alibi hold up more than others making it an interesting but uneven early Best Picture nominee.

Nominee: Feature Productions, United Artists

Producer: Roland West

Director: Roland West

Screenplay: Roland West and C. Gardner Sullivan, from the play by John Griffith Wray & J.C. Nugent and Elaine S. Carrington

Cast: Chester Morris, Harry Stubbs, Mae Busch, Eleanor Griffith

Release Date: April 20^th, 1929

Total Nominations: 3, including Outstanding Picture

Win(s): N/A

Other Nominations: Actor-Chester Morris, Art Direction-William Cameron Menzies