Alibi | |
---|---|
Directed by | Roland West |
Written by | Elaine Sterne Carrington |
Based on | Nightstick by Elaine Sterne Carrington, J.C. Nugent, Elliott Nugent, and John Wray |
Produced by | Roland West |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Ray June |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 90 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Alibi (also known as The Perfect Alibi, Nightstick) [1] is a 1929 American crime film directed by Roland West. The screenplay was written by West and C. Gardner Sullivan, who adapted the 1927 Broadway stage play, Nightstick, written by Elaine Sterne Carrington, J.C. Nugent, Elliott Nugent, and John Wray. [2]
The movie is a crime drama starring Chester Morris, Harry Stubbs, Mae Busch, and Regis Toomey. Director West experimented a great deal with sound, music, and camera angles.
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]
Chicago banned the film, citing it for "immorality, criminality, and depravity." [6]
Bulldog Drummond is a 1929 American pre-Code crime film in which Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond helps a beautiful young woman in distress. The film stars Ronald Colman as the title character, Claud Allister, Lawrence Grant, Montagu Love, Wilson Benge, Joan Bennett, and Lilyan Tashman. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by F. Richard Jones, the movie was adapted by Sidney Howard from the play by H. C. McNeile.
Nancy Kelly was an American actress in film, theater, and television. A child actress and model, she was a repertory cast member of CBS Radio's The March of Time, and appeared in several films in the late 1920s. She became a leading lady upon returning to the screen in the late 1930s, while still in her teens, and made two dozen movies between 1938 and 1946, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic Jesse James (1939), which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone, later that same year. After turning to the stage in the late 1940s, she had her greatest success in a character role, the distraught mother in The Bad Seed, receiving a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the 1955 stage production and an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for the 1956 film adaptation, her last film role. Kelly then worked regularly in television until 1963, then took over the role of Martha in the original Broadway production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for several months. She returned to television for a handful of appearances in the mid-1970s.
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Roland West was an American film director, known for his innovative proto-film noir movies of the 1920s and early 1930s. He is however best known for his possible involvement in the death of Hollywood actress Thelma Todd in 1935.
John Francis Regis Toomey was an American film and television actor.
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Blondie Johnson is a 1933 American pre-Code gangster film directed by Ray Enright and starring Joan Blondell and Chester Morris. It was produced by Warner Bros.
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The Big Fix is a 1947 American crime drama film starring James Brown, Sheila Ryan, Noreen Nash, and Regis Toomey. Directed by James Flood, the story concerns the efforts of a crooked gambling ring to fix college basketball games. This film was the final production of Producers Releasing Corporation.
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Adrian Michael Morris was an American actor of stage and film, and a younger brother of Chester Morris.