Alibi (1929)
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Alibi Movie Review
Alibi is a 1929 Oscar-nominated crime film directed by Roland West and starring Chester Morris. It is a pretty solid, though far from great flick.
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“I’m a crook and you’re a crook’s wife“
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I liked the plot here quite a bit as it is engaging to follow and mostly realistic. They portrayed the policemen and criminals as well as their girlfriends in a realistic and far from black-and-white manner which I respected. The movie’s short and sweet and thus it flies by quickly. The interrogation scene is the most memorable moment along with that climactic ending of course.
Let’s talk about the characters. Chick Williams is a pretty memorable main character and I liked how interesting and even intriguing he was. Daisy is also pretty memorable and their relationship is quite solid. And the policemen are also solid, albeit not as memorable as these two.
This film is plagued by those obvious problems from early sound films such as the lack of more realistic acting. The performances here are okay for their time, but dated for today, particularly those of the policemen. As for Chester Morris, he is definitely charismatic and his vocal performance is very good, but his silly, overplayed facial expressions annoyed me. He did not deserve an Oscar nomination in my opinion, but he wasn’t a terrible nominee either.
Alibi has another problem typical for 1929 and that is the sound which is poor and frequently it gets difficult to even hear the actors speak. The filmmakers are also obsessed with giving the audience a musical number every other scene or so which is understandable, but still silly as it did not serve the story whatsoever.
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I did find Roland West’s direction to be pretty solid as is the pacing of the film which is very strong and, as I said above, it is an involving movie even today. The tone is also very good and I felt the danger. The cinematography is striking at times with some beautiful shots and terrific camera angles as well as effects. Art Direction nomination was deserved, but the Best Picture nod definitely wasn’t. Still it’s a solid movie for its time, but certainly inferior to ‘The Racket’.
Alibi is a solid crime flick with memorable characters, fine plot, excellent and very interesting cinematography and good pacing. It is short and pretty involving to watch. But the sound is expectedly weak, the musical numbers are unnecessary and some of the acting performances are admittedly very hammy.
