Alibi

Joan Manning, the daughter of a police sergeant, secretly marries Chick Williams, a gang leader 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 to find evidence of Chick's crime. Roland West's Alibi (1929) is in some ways typical of an early sound film. The script was based on a long-running Broadway play and, as noted in a 1929 New York Times article on the film, five of the lead actors began their career on the stage and appeared in film for the first time here: Eleanore Griffith, Chester Morris, Regis Toomey, Harry Stubbs and Purnell Pratt. One notable exception was Mae Busch, a veteran of the silent era who had worked with directors such as Erich von Stroheim and Tod Browning. But if Alibi's dialogue scenes and acting reflect the extent to which Hollywood had come to depend on theatrical talent to satisfy the public demand for "talkies," the film is also a good example of how the best filmmakers tried to recover some of the visual freedom of the silent era and often used sound in a creative, non-naturalistic manner. As was common for the era, portions of the film were shot silent, which allowed for a number of impressive tracking shots not possible with bulky sound equipment. Alibi also uses selective sound effects in a deliberately stylized manner, as one can hear in the rhythmic clanks that begin the film and in the passage where Joan Manning's singing is accompanied by a bird song; in a way, the sound effects become a musical element in their own right. Incidentally, the score was arranged by Hugo Riesenfeld, who was also responsible for the soundtrack to Sunrise (1927). The other notable aspect of Alibi is its art direction by William Cameron Menzies (1896-1957). Arguably the most talented production designer of his day, he also worked on The Thief of Bagdad (1924), Gone with the Wind (1939), Foreign Correspondent (1940), and directed the classic science fiction films Things to Come (1936) and Invaders from Mars (1953). The most striking set in the film is easily the gangster's lair, a riot of geometric patterns. Yet the sets for Alibi are not just an example of the Art Deco style that was all the rage; they are also a clear nod to German Expressionism, as is the visual design of the film as a whole. For instance, the marching inmates at the beginning of the film undoubtedly allude to Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), and one lengthy tracking shot towards a hotel, complete with doorman, recalls F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924). The soundtrack for Alibi uses the MovieTone sound-on-film process invented by Freeman Harrison Owens in 1924 and adopted by the Fox Film Corporation to compete with Warner Brother's Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology. While MovieTone had lower fidelity, it didn't have the recurring synchronization problems in projection that plagued Vitaphone. The left side of the negative was devoted to the soundtrack, which cut into the picture area and resulted in an almost square 1.19:1 aspect ratio. This was true both for early synchronized sound films such as Alibi and silent films shown with MovieTone synchronized music and effects tracks, such as Murnau's Sunrise. Later, the standard image area on prints with soundtracks was further reduced to return it to a more rectangular 1.37:1 aspect ratio, which became known as the Academy Aspect ratio. Alibi was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Chester Morris), and Best Art Direction. Producer: Joseph M. Schenck Director: Roland West Director of Photography: Ray June Script: Roland West and C. Gardner Sullivan. Based on the play Nightstick (1927) by John Griffith Wray, Elaine S. Carrington, Elliott Nugent and J. C. Nugent. Editing: Hal C. Kern Music: Hugo Riesenfeld Art Director: William Cameron Menzies Cast: Chester Morris (Chick Williams), Harry Stubbs (Buck Bachman), Mae Busch (Daisy Thomas), Eleanore Griffith (Joan Manning); Irma Harrison (Toots, cabaret dancer), Regis Toomey (Danny McGann), Al Hill (Brown, a crook), James Bradbury, Jr. (Blake, a crook), Elmer Ballard (Soft Malone, cab driver), Kernan Cripps (Trask, plainclothesman), Purnell B. Pratt (Pete Manning, police sergeant), Pat O'Malley (Tommy Glennon, detective), DeWitt Jennings (O'Brien, policeman), Edward Brady (George Stanislaus David). BW-83m. by James Steffen