This month, Old Academy Anew goes to the second edition of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards. I wanted to do the first, but I couldn’t deal with the silent movies; they were weird and seemed to have the dialog cards before the scenes, which made it feel backward somehow. Most were depressing as fekk too— not the point of this time-travel adventure.
BLACK & WHITE
We have come to associate black and white visuals with artsy manifestations of snobbery. And yet, there was a time when that was all we have to express art on the silver screen. But was it called that “silver screen” then? It’s tricky to make compelling emotional calls without color; you cannot rely on the coded messages ingrained in our brains since childhood. Still, those color codes have changed over the decades (and aren’t even identical across cultures) in the same way word meanings have evolved or completely shifted throughout the ages.
The first minute of Alibi shows the best percussion formation made with nightsticks and marching prisoners this side of the trashcan drumming shows from Broadway.
Our main character gets called out of the marching line and sent to a big, sparse-furnished space. The frigid utilitarian feel in the atmosphere and the continuous background click-clack of the previous frame tell a lot without any of the two people in the scene saying a word. We see our protagonist receiving his release papers as we learn his name: Chick Williams (Chester Morris). This won’t be the first time that names and words, in general, have a meaning that changed logic a long time ago. We don’t know why this man was in jail, but today that name would have made him very popular with the other inmates.
Williams (if I call him Chick, I’m gonna keep snorting and end up with a keyboard full of snot), changes from his prison uniform to a snappy suit thanks to the magic of fading frame. He shakes hands with the guard/clerk in a very formal but definitive goodbye.
The next scene takes all that gloomy austerity and throws it out the window, landing us in a lively club with showgirls dancing in a (by the standards of today, boring) silly choreography. The leading lady exchanges googly eyes with a grinning drunkard. If you wonder why the camera is focusing on the pair, it’s because they are Chekhov’s guns in this movie.
From those two, we move to a foursome. This group is dining, but the display seems weird at first glance because it brings to mind Da Vinci’s Last Supper with all the participants seated facing the viewer. For a moment you think it’s because they’re facing the show, but they aren’t. Williams sits between two women, a blond and a brunette, with an old man taking the far left. I might sound ugly here but the immediate impression is “dude’s having dinner with his parents and girlfriend” by the apparent ages of the people around him. The only thing I got right was the girlfriend part, but about the wrong woman.
See, Eleanor Griffith, the actress playing blond Joan Manning (Williams’s love interest in Alibi) is actually a year younger than Chester Morris, but I thought she was his mamma.
Not trying to be an ageist or an asshole, I’m team Cougars. It was just annoyingly distracting in addition to the lackluster romantic chemistry between them. The whole time it felt like she was with him because he’s a pretty, bad boy and he’s with her because “the movie needs a plot.” You’ll get what I mean further down.
The old man, Buck Bachman (Harry Stubbs) is the owner of the club and comments on how Williams was framed by the police, but all that time in prison will be rewarded with a good job now that he’s out. The other woman, Bachman’s brunette wife, tells Williams to take Joan for a spin. On the dance floor, Williams thanks Joan for being there with him on his first night as a free man and for her loyalty through all the letters while he was in the Big House.
As Joan and Williams dance, drunken Chekhov’s gun, waves at Joan with the most moronic grin I have ever seen in a movie. Her eyes shoot daggers at him, and she turns to face away. As soon as they get back to their table, the smiling drunk shows up and is introduced by Bachman as The Boy Broker (Regis Toomey). “He handles things” Bachman adds cryptically. Stumbling like a person failing a sobriety test on I-69 at 2:47 a.m., he rounds the table to sit beside Joan. He asks her to write down her address on a piece of paper so he can show her a swell trick. Joan looks at Williams, who in turn looks at Bachman. “He’s all right,” Bachman answers, all smiles and paternal indulgence.
With the address written, The Boy Broker tears the info and folds it, placing it in the pocket of his jacket. When Joan asks about the trick, he answers, “It was to find where you reside,” and laughs like a loony.
Bad boy Williams has no reaction to this. A drunken idiot just got his girl’s address, and he does nothing. I wonder if the writers didn’t know how to portray a mobster or were trying not to spoil the surprise by making them clash prematurely. Either way, Hashtag Lazy Writing.
The next scene finds Joan humming as she sets the table in a house. As she goes back to the kitchen, two men suspiciously enter the place; one has the stripes of a police sergeant, and the other is in civilian clothes.
Alibi wants us to believe they have nefarious plans, and this isn’t the last time it tries to confuse us about people’s motives and actions.
The policeman is the older of the duo, and he quickly disappears into a room after a hushed exchange, leaving the other man to face Joan, who comes out of the kitchen with a tray. She’s not startled or intimidated by the man. She knows him. He’s been trying to get her to marry him for quite some time, according to their immediate conversation. She doesn’t want to marry him because being the daughter of a policeman is trying enough to now marry one. You’re only given a moment to feel sorry for her before being smacked with the truth.
In her eyes, policemen are evil, forcing people to confess to crimes they didn’t commit and other bad naughty, naughty stuff. Detective Tommy Glennon (Pat O’Malley) tells Joan, he’s ready to quit the Force for her. The name Williams is mentioned, and Police Daddy (Purnell Pratt) storms from the room where he’s been eavesdropping.
Daughter and father have an argument that ends with Papa Law saying he’s through with her unless she hooks up with Tommy… Well, at the end of the day, “hook up” retains its connotation of being inside someone else whether by marriage (in 1929) or apps (today).
The filial confrontation fades to black with Joan smirking, and Alibi jumps to another time and location.
The National Theater offers us another song number, and I can’t help but laugh imagining the outrage of cultural appropriation zealots if they watched this multicultural mashup number. Funny thing, it brought to mind another musical number in a very culturally complicated movie, Sayonara (1957). But I digress. Williams, Joan, and the Bachman’s enjoy the show from their private box. We get a very clear view of William’s wristwatch as the intermission begins. The two men leave the women behind to go in search of a smoke.
The scene moves outside the theater, and we see a car leaving the theater. Nothing indicates the car has Williams and Buchanan in it, but Alibi is doing its sneaky thing again.
A pocket watch gives us the hour, this time belonging to a policeman somewhere in the city. It’s ten o’clock now. The PoPo yawns as a car passes him by in a hurry. That seems suspicious in his deserted street, so he goes to investigate its destination. The car stops. A guy alights to knock on a door, and out come two men, arms full of furs. They flung the precious cargo into the car’s spread door. Flat foot catches them in the act and holds them at gunpoint as he starts rapping his nightstick on the streetlamp.
Blowing their whistles, other policemen add to the nightsticks raising the alert. This cacophony is a dramatic reminder that this ain’t the well-structured discipline we saw in prison at the beginning of the movie; this is chaos. You can also say life and death because the odds are three-to-one against the officer as he waits for backup. Alas, help won’t arrive in time— a hand with a gun emerges from the car…
Thanks to the magic of movie scripts, Detective Glennon happens to be in the area, hears the commotion, and rushes to help. I know it’s instincts and all that, but does he even have a weapon on him? He and other uniformed officers converge to find their brother in arms fallen— life seeping away atop the expensive fur of slaughtered animals. The detective gives instructions to deal with the situation, and we fade to black briefly to return to the original wristwatch, showing 10:05 p.m. We actually see Williams and Buchanan outside the theater finishing their smoke. They go back in, surrounded by other patrons.
COPPER BLUE
The next scene opens with Police Daddy finishing a conversation on an old-timey phone, his face full of shaving cream. A bird singing obnoxiously loud is the background soundtrack as Glennon shows up. Papa Law tells him they grabbed a suspect for the murder in Jersey. He wipes his face and uses the towel to cover the noisy bird.
Alibi is a film with no intention of being subtle in its symbolism, and a silenced songbird won’t be the last of them.
The detective grabs the phone to contact what we would call today the security desk of the building to allow someone to come up. I equate it to the security desk at first but then I remember that at the time all the phone calls needed to be distributed, so this man, who happens to be the only person of color in the movie, might just be a simple operator. Nevertheless, he sends the newcomer up, but we cannot see who it is.
Well, surprise-surprise, it’s none other than The Boy Broker, future inspiration for Keanu Reeves in Point Break (1991).
Since The Boy Broker has been undercover for a long time, he knows all the crooks, and they could use his contacts to find out more about the case. Police Daddy takes The Boy Broker to his room to talk while Glennon once again remains visible to talk to Joan.
Joan is not there, though. She just happens to be coming from wherever with Williams and Mrs. Bachman. For plot reasons, she asks her companions to wait for her by the operator’s desk because she’s going to “pack her backs and come right back down.”
Meanwhile, The Boy Broker tells Papa Law he thinks Bachman is involved in the police officer’s murder, and Papa doesn’t waste a second to figure out a way to involve Williams in the situation.
When Joan enters the apartment, she hears voices coming from her father’s room. The detective comes out of a different door, and she asks about the voices. He explains it’s just an acquaintance from the Force helping them with the case. Quickly changing topics, he reiterates his marriage proposal, reminding her of his intention to quit if that’s what it takes. They are close. They lock eyes. She tells him it’s too late.
Glennon asks Joan if she’s still in love with Williams. Her answer is yes, and she turns to her room. He lets her go, defeated. Immediately, Police Daddy comes out of his room, saying loudly that they found a way to pin the cop murder on Williams. Dun Dun Dun. Joan comes out and says she has proof that Williams didn’t do it and she will not let him get away with framing Pretty Boy again. See? This is why Joan ain’t siding with them coppers ‘cause they framing assholes.
Who comes barging out of Daddy’s room as Joan grabs the phone to make Williams and Mrs. Bachman come up?
You know it. The Boy Broker is such a great actor, he doesn’t even flinch when he sees Joan. They just stare at each other until he asks, “Well, how do you do?” Papa Law is surprised that they know each other. Joan accepts she knows him, but with a different name. She’s sure her friends are going to be happy learning that dude’s a police mole.
Once again, for plot reasons, only Mrs. Bachman comes up. The Boy Broker assumes his drunken buffoon persona. Just a simple visit since he tricked Joan out of her address some nights ago. I mean, as excuses go, it was an irrefutable one.
Still, here I wonder if Alibi is doing its sneaky thing, and The Boy Broker knew who Joan was when he tricked her that night.
Police Daddy and Detective Glennon take a minute to grasp what’s happening. Joan lets the charade run its course as The Boy Broker even intervenes when Papa Law is rude to Mrs. Bachman. The two moles (see what I did there?) leave but tell Williams what is happening with Joan as they meet at the bottom of the stairs.
Williams goes up to the apartment and is all smiles as Joan opens the door for him. His smile remains as he greets Glennon by his first name then turns to Police Daddy and offers his hand. Ah, but Papa Law ain’t happy to see him there. Old man is rude to all “bad people” apparently. Joan informs him Daddy thinks he’s involved in the recent copper murder.
The smile returns. “I’m afraid you’re in the wrong lead, Mr. Manning.”
Unconvinced, Papa Law frisks him right there and then. Williams chuckle. “I never carry a gun.” He arches an eyebrow after a beat. “Unless the police plant one on me as they did the last time.”
Having to go back in time to movies like Alibi to get a whiff of subtext— a thing basically erased from today’s filmography is depressing.
Grumpy McPopo asks Williams where he was last Friday night. Williams makes a show of concentrating hard to remember his whereabouts. He brings back that shiny grin of his and says, “I was at the National Theater.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to prove it,” barks Police Daddy. But it’s Joan who has the answer. She rummages in her purse and produces two box tickets for the night in question. “At the time the murder happened, we were together.”
More than the alibi provided by his daughter, Papa Popo is mad about Joan parading in public with a jailbird. She grabs Williams’s arm and declares, “I’m his wife. We got married this morning,” adding insult to injury in that way only daddy’s girls can.
Double Dun Dun Dun.
GREEN TRUTHS
As inciting incidents go, trying to find a way to eradicate the jailbird (you already framed once) for marrying your daughter is epic. We are about to embark in a journey of corruption, bullying, and dark shenanigans. Compared to this, 75% of the films today are elementary school productions of Bonnie and Clyde with zero adult supervision.
Now, this begs the question: Who is the protagonist of Alibi? Well, every character has ulterior motives and goals in opposition to the others, and allegiances change as secrets are uncovered.
We start with Williams, but it doesn’t really feel like this is his HIS story. It’s not Joan’s story either, even if almost everything revolves around her. Maybe Corruption in all its facets is the true main character here; outlaws and law abusers in the same level of wrongdoing eerily resemble things still happening almost one hundred years later. I’m not going to get political here, but plays and films have always been a way to comment on the issues of the time, but we’re losing that.
I personally watch movies to get distracted from the shitty reality relentlessly smacking us over the head. That darkness those in power seem to enjoy spreading, regardless of how it affects constituents— at least in quote-unquote democracies. I can’t talk about the other styles of government ‘cause I haven’t lived in said nefarious regimes. Nevertheless, you don’t need to make a dark, depressing movie to comment on the times we live. In reality, this is the perfect moment to brandish comedy and satire to illuminate our currently gloomy surroundings.
I don’t agree with some of the choices several characters made during the third act; also, there were a couple of resolutions so out of leftfield they left me baffled. Perhaps, some made sense at the time, but timelessness should be the thing every film should aspire to be. They can’t be that if the reasons lose meaning with the tides of change.
Originally filmed as a silent movie, the subsequent re-shoots to add dialogue show in Alibi’s somewhat stilted editing.
So, could this movie be remade today? Hmm… With all the technological advances, one way to do it would be a la Great Gatsby (2010), a period piece. Yeah, it’s been done ad nauseam with Agatha Christie’s shenanigans via Hercules Poirot; still, this is a deep film even if it’s more crime than mystery.
Unfortunately, a modern-day adaptation of Alibi would be an uphill battle in a world rampant with unimaginative projects regurgitated by Hollywood.
How can you tell a story that makes sense for its time but could be viewed as simple today? Who am I kidding? It would be a smashing success just by putting the trendiest actors in the lead roles; make all the musical numbers with the crudest music of the day and barely-clad behinds shaking. And that’s what we deserve for being so horribly basic. Hashtag Sorry Not Sorry.
I highly recommend this movie. Still, beware— close caption is your friend. These actors mumble a lot, and the era slang will make you laugh during poignant moments of dramatic importance.
I’m going to give Alibi 8 out of 10 because Chester Morris is a total hunk; that certainly evens out my nitpicking.
Alibi is available on YouTube
