By Richard Harland Smith
Blind Alibi
Brief Synopsis
A man pretends to be blind to foil blackmailers.
Cast & Crew
Read More
Lew Landers
Director
Richard Dix
Paul Dover
Whitney Bourne
Julia Fraser
Eduardo Ciannelli
Mitch
Frances Mercer
Ellen
Paul Guilfoyle
Taggart
Film Details
Genre
Crime
Release Date
May
20,
1938
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 2m
Sound
Mono (RCA Victor System)
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
7 reels
Synopsis
To save her husband's career, Ellen, the American wife of a prominent Parisian politician, asks her brother, sculptor Paul Dover, to retrieve a packet of her love letters from the blackmailing criminal Marlow. With his neighbor Marcel, a professional safecracker, Paul breaks into Marlow's office and steals the letters, which Ellen had written to Marlow as a naive university student, from a safe. As Marcel is escaping from the office, however, he is shot by one of Marlow's men and dumps the letters in an alleyway. Although Marlow, who has forced a confession out of Marcel, is arrested, Paul decides to track down the letters, which have ended up in a shipment bound for a museum in Los Angeles. Once in Los Angeles, Paul assumes the disguise of a blind man, buying Ace, a Seeing Eye dog, and ingratiating himself with Julia Fraser, the assistant curator of the museum, who, out of compassion, grants him permission to study all of the exhibits. At the same time, Mitch, a Los Angeles cohort of Marlow, murders a museum janitor and plants one of his men, Taggart, in the vacated position. When Taggart is unable to infiltrate the collection, he suggests to Mitch that they hire Paul, who agrees to do the job. After convincing the police of his blindness, Paul learns that the letters have been moved to Julia's desk. With Ace at his side, Paul, who has confessed his impersonation to Julia, breaks into the museum and burns the letters before Mitch and his gang arrive. As Paul leaves the museum, however, he is caught by Mitch, and during the ensuing struggle, Ace suffers a sight-threatening gunshot wound. Although Mitch is captured by the police, Paul is arrested for stealing the letters after he delivers Ace to a veterinarian. Paul serves his year-long prison sentence and is released to the loving, faithful arms of Julia and a recuperated Ace.
Director
Lew Landers
Director
Cast
Richard Dix
Paul Dover
Whitney Bourne
Julia Fraser
Eduardo Ciannelli
Mitch
Frances Mercer
Ellen
Paul Guilfoyle
Taggart
Richard Lane
Bowers
Jack Arnold
Dirk
Walter Miller
Maitland
Frank M. Thomas
Larson
Solly Ward
Al
George Irving
Curator
Ace, The Wonder Dog
Ace
Tommy Bupp
Freddie
Crew
Ted Cheesman
Editing
William Joyce Cowan
Original Story
Edward Donohue
Assistant Director
Ron Ferguson
Screenwriter
Al Herman
Art Director Associate
Lionel Houser
Screenwriter
Nicholas Musuraca
Photography
Van Nest Polglase
Art Director
Cliff Reid
Producer
Renié
Gowns
Harry Segall
Screenwriter
Earl A. Wolcott
Recording
Film Details
Genre
Crime
Release Date
May
20,
1938
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 2m
Sound
Mono (RCA Victor System)
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
7 reels
Articles
Blind Alibi -
With Blind Alibi (1938), RKO Radio Pictures introduced its rival to Warner Bros.' canine superstar Rin Tin Tin in "Ace, the Wonder Dog," a German Shepherd who went on to appear in more than a dozen feature films between 1938 and 1946. Based on an unpublished story, "The Unseeing Eye," written by Kongo director William Cowan, Blind Alibi begins in France, where the American wife (Frances Mercer) of a prominent Parisian politician turns to her sculptor brother (Richard Dix) to retrieve a packet of incriminating love letters from her indiscreet past. When the letters wind up in a shipment of artwork bound for the United States, Paul follows, hitting on the retrieval tactic of posing as a blind man in order to gain entry to the Los Angeles museum where the letters have landed. Paul's acquisition of a seeing-eye dog, a budding love interest in a comely museum curator (Whitney Bourne), and the added complication of a local gangster (Eduardo Ciannelli) who will stop at nothing to grab the letters for his own profit make Blind Alibi a highly improbable, though highly entertaining, shaggy dog story that culminates in the familiar near-tragedy of Ace taking a bullet for the team. Ace would next appear for RKO as a police dog opposite Tim Holt in The Rookie Cop (1939) but he proved no real threat to Rinty and was soon hiring on with such Poverty Row studios as Republic and Monogram. For Columbia Pictures, Ace played Devil, the four-legged best friend of Tom Tyler's The Phantom (1943), a 15-part serial adaptation of the popular comic strip by Lee Falk.
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
Blind Alibi -
With Blind Alibi (1938), RKO Radio Pictures introduced its rival to Warner Bros.' canine superstar Rin Tin Tin in "Ace, the Wonder Dog," a German Shepherd who went on to appear in more than a dozen feature films between 1938 and 1946. Based on an unpublished story, "The Unseeing Eye," written by Kongo director William Cowan, Blind Alibi begins in France, where the American wife (Frances Mercer) of a prominent Parisian politician turns to her sculptor brother (Richard Dix) to retrieve a packet of incriminating love letters from her indiscreet past. When the letters wind up in a shipment of artwork bound for the United States, Paul follows, hitting on the retrieval tactic of posing as a blind man in order to gain entry to the Los Angeles museum where the letters have landed. Paul's acquisition of a seeing-eye dog, a budding love interest in a comely museum curator (Whitney Bourne), and the added complication of a local gangster (Eduardo Ciannelli) who will stop at nothing to grab the letters for his own profit make Blind Alibi a highly improbable, though highly entertaining, shaggy dog story that culminates in the familiar near-tragedy of Ace taking a bullet for the team. Ace would next appear for RKO as a police dog opposite Tim Holt in The Rookie Cop (1939) but he proved no real threat to Rinty and was soon hiring on with such Poverty Row studios as Republic and Monogram. For Columbia Pictures, Ace played Devil, the four-legged best friend of Tom Tyler's The Phantom (1943), a 15-part serial adaptation of the popular comic strip by Lee Falk.
By Richard Harland Smith
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The screenplay for this film was adapted from William Joyce Cowan's unpublished story, "The Seeing Eye." Richard Dix returned to RKO to act in this movie after a two-year absence from the studio. Although Hollywood Reporter announced that Blind Alibi was to be the first of four RKO pictures starring Dix and produced by Cliff Reid, Reid only produced one of the four. According to Motion Picture Herald's "In the Cutting Room," Lightning, not Ace, the Wonder Dog, was to appear in the film. The Motion Picture Herald review erroneously lists Lightning in the cast. Motion Picture Herald's "In the Cutting Room" and Hollywood Reporter news items add George Davis, Gladden James, William Gould, Lew Carter, Clyde Wilson, Pat O'Malley, Monte Montague, Robert Homans, Lew Phelps and Richard Parker to the cast, but their participation in the final film has not been confirmed.
