Alibi 1929

[Mariam Obregon]

Joan Manning, the daughter of a police sergeant, secretly marries Chick Williams, a gangleader who convinces her that he is leading an honest life. Chick attends the theater with Joan and, at the intermission, sneaks away, committing a robbery during which a policeman is killed. Chick is suspected of the crime but is able to use Joan to substantiate his alibi. The police plant Danny McGann, an undercover agent, in Chick's gang; but he is discovered, and Chick murders him. Chick is later cornered by the police in his own home. Before they can arrest him, he flips the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. In the midst of the chaos, Chick escapes to the roof. He attempts to jump off to a nearby building, but stumbles on the landing, thus falling to his death.

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including for Best Picture (Roland West), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Chester Morris) and Best Art Direction (William Cameron Menzies).[3]Time praised it as "more credible than most crook pictures,"[4] and The New York Times said it was "by far the best of the gangster films, and the fact that it is equipped with dialogue makes it all the more stirring."[5] In a retrospective review, Bruce G. Hallenbeck said the film was "creaky by today's standards...[but] still fun to watch."[1]

Yes, its the same crime Tom Powers and company would commit in The Public Enemy two years later (and parodied two years after that in Little Giant). So did Bright and Glasmon lift the idea from screenwriters Roland West and C. Gardner Sullivan, who were adapting the 1927 stage play Nightstick? Or were warehouse fur robberies a big deal in the 1920s?

Alibi is one of the first gangster films of the sound era, so most of the actors speak in that odd, slow, dreamlike cadence of early talkies rather than the snappy patter of a Cagney or Robinson. But we get some great shots from director Roland West: the shadow of the detective outside the door while Soft Malone (Elmer Ballard) is being grilled; Billy Morgan (Regis Toomey in his film debut) drunkenly reaching for booze; the rooftop escape of Chick Williams (Chester Morris, nominated for an Oscar).

Cops just dont understand
It begins the way The Big House (also starring Morris) began a year later: with the robotic clomping of the feet of marching prisoners. One is singled out. Hes shown a piece of paper with his prison ID on it, No. 1065, and it morphs into his name, Chick Williams. When we next see him, hes wearing a suit, rather than his prison grays, and shaking the guards hand on the way out. Nice bit.

Then were a nightclub run by Buck Bachman (Harry Stubbs), with the dancing girls and singers of the era. Chick is there with his girl, Joan (Eleanor Griffith), at a table with Buck and his wise-cracking moll Daisy (Mae Busch), and theyre talking about the bum rap Chick got. A drunk stumbles over. Its Billy Morgan, boy stockbroker. Hes got an eye for Joan and engages in some shenanigans to get her address. Buck calls him harmless. We wonder.

For the first half, it feels like a wronged-man movie. Chick is courting Joan, the daughter of Sgt. Paul Manning (Purnell Pratt), but the old man hates Chick, whom he calls a jailbird, and wants Joan to marry Det. Tommy Glennon (Pat OMalley). But Joan doesn't want to marry a cop. Some of her thoughts feel on the matter feel surprisingly contemporary:

Tommy: Now whats the matter with policemen?
Joan: Theyre man hunters. Theyre cruel and mercilessalways hounding some poor devil and sending him to jail. They think themselves great heroes.
Tommy: Well, weve got to uphold the law.
Joan: Law! Is third-degreeingbull-dogging people into confessing crimes they didnt commitis that law?
Tommy: No, but... Oh, I dont understand.
Joan: Of course you dont. Youre a policeman.

Much of the film bears her out, too. When Dad finds out Chick and Joan got married, he literally locks up his daughter like shes in a fairy tale. Then he tries to railroad Chick into jail again bypinning the fur heist/cop killing on him with zero evidence. When his own daughter provides the alibithat they were at the National Theater that nightDad sends Tommy to see if it was theoretically possible for Chick to have committed the crime. And it was! The show has an intermission between 9:55 and 10:05, and the cop was killed at 10 PMjust five minute away.

Holy crap. At this point, Im thinking: Well, the movie was independently produced, by West, and distributed by United Artists, and it was pre-code, so cops didnt have to be heroes. Even so, it felt revelatory: The cops are the bad guys!

The first reveal is that Billy Morgan, the drunk broker who finagles Joans address, is in fact an undercover cop, Danny McGann. The second reveal is that our poor put-upon hero is in fact a cold-blooded cop killer. Dad was right: Chick actually runs the gang; Buck is a flunky. When Chick discovers that Soft Malone has been pinched, he looks for a respectable citizen who might verify that Chick phoned him at 10 PM from the National Theater on the night of the killing. Guess who he chooses? Billy Morgan, boy broker.

What cowards these criminals be
My favorite character is Daisy. Shes a smart cookie whos stuck with Buck, a dull lump, and she gets off some of the best lines.After everything goes awry, he tells her to pack a suitcase, she balks, and he pushes her head-first into a door. (Makes a grapefruit-to-the-face seem loving.) Shortly thereafter, Chick arrives, sees Joan on the phone (unknowingly alerting the cops to their whereabouts), and starts yelling at Buck.

As revolutionary as the movie seems early on, with Joans diatribe against coppers, it winds up at the other, more predictable extreme, with Tommy not only catching Chick but taunting him into proving what a coward he is. That said, Chicks death is handled well. He escapes to the rooftop, jumps to another building, barely makes it, then loses his balance and falls silently to his death. I flashed on Roths death in Norman Mailers The Naked and the Dead.

Its not a bad little movie, totally undeserving of its current 5.7 IMDb rating. Dont think Morris deserved his Oscar nom, but I guess the mid-movie switcheroo impressed early Academy voters. Set design is crazy fun: those art-deco doors of early talkies, along with almost Dali-esque wallpaper.

Director Roland West is probably best known today for being a suspect in the 1935 death of Thelma Todd, his one-time lover and business partner (of Thelma Todds Sidewalk Caf), whose body was found in Wests garage in a still-running Packard convertible. He directed several good Lon Chaney movies in the silent era, and obviously made the transition to talkies well enough, so Im not sure what happened to him. His last film, as director or producer, was Corsair in 1931, starring Chester Morris and Thelma Todd. He also has several ur-superhero connections. His 1926 silent film, The Bat, was part of the inspiration for Batman, while West later married Lola Lane, one of the Lane sisters (Four Daughters, Four Wives), whose name, yes, helped inspire Jerry Siegels Daily Planet reporter.

What Joan doesn't know is that Chick actually is guilty of the robbery and murder, having ducked out of the theater during an intermission. The police continue to investigate Chick, inserting into his social one Danny McGann, who goes undercover as drunken stockbroker "Billy Morgan" and gains Chick's confidence.

• Alcohol Hic: Danny does this when undercover at the nightclub as "Billy" the drunken reprobate.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Joan rejects squeaky-clean Tommy and instead falls for Chick the ex-con, although at least part of the reason is her disgust at how the police in the town operate.
• Deadpan Snarker: Daisy, Buck's girlfriend, says almost nothing but snappy one-liners.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Danny has an extended death scene in Tommy's arms after the cops burst in to the back room seconds too late.
• Dirty Coward: When Tommy pulls out a gun and says he's going to murder Chick, the formerly tough-guy gangster breaks down, getting on his hands and knees and begging and pleading, as well as offering to give up Joan.
• Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: From the newsboys hawking special editions with "GUNMAN ESCAPES" headlines after Chick escapes from the nightclub.
• Fainting: Chick faints after Tommy pretends to shoot him with blanks.
• Fanservice: Several scenes featuring the leg-kicking chorus girls at Buck's nightclub. Toots the chorus girl falls in love with "Billy".
• Go Out with a Smile: Danny dies listening to music only he can hear after Tommy promises to get Chick.
• Hand of Death: Just such a hand reaches out of a taxicab to shoot O'Brien the security guard In the Back. We don't find out until later that it was Chick.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Joan falls for Chick's act hook, line, and sinker.
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: Danny says "it's getting hard to see" right before he croaks.
• Informed Flaw: Joan says the police in the town are all corrupt and somehow seems to think sending officers in undercover to investigate crimes is an underhanded technique. But aside from a scene where they use some questionable methods to get a name out of a lowlife on who shot a cop, something that's a highly personal matter to the police, they're generally shown to be decent and honest if hard-nosed men.
• The Infiltration: Danny assumes the identity of "Billy Morgan", supposedly a stockbroker but actually a sloppy drunk. He worms his way into Chick's inner circle.
• In the Back: How Chick shoots the security guard and how Chick shoots Danny, after Toots barrels into the room at the worst possible time, and distracts Danny. Danny, who crumples to the floor but is still alive, sneers "You're a great guy, aren't you, when it comes to shooting a guy in the back."
• Love Triangle: Joan, Tommy the adoring cop, and Chick the dashing criminal.
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Ends with Tommy putting his arm around Joan and walking away.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Danny manages to keep the gangsters in the dark about his identity as a cop by appearing to be a drunken fool all of the time.
• One-Word Title: Alibi
• Roof Hopping: How Tommy meets his end, not quite being able to do this. He escapes from Buck's apartment, dashes to the roof, and leaps over the gap to the next building, but not quite far enough. He loses his balance and falls backwards off the building to his death.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Buck and Daisy's relationship is this.
• Title Drop: After Joan tells her story a frustrated Pete says "They've got the perfect alibi."
• '20s Bob Haircut: Joan and Daisy both have fluffy ones.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In her attempt to phone Tommy, Joan uses the same phone number that Billy did, revealing that he'd used one that leads to a phone tree used by the police to avoid suspicion. This clues in Chick and company to the fact Billy is an undercover cop, which leads to his death.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: More due to Values Dissonance today as the word 'chick' became associated more with describing women, but even so, Chick is an odd name for a man. It's not a nickname either as it's on his paperwork when he leaves jail.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Joan in an odd, morality-flipped way. She seems to think Chick is an innocent man who deserves a second chance and all cops are corrupt, despite only one real scene in the movie showing any signs of corruption from them.

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