Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 61: An Almost Silent Witness

The films that I have watched from the second Oscar ceremony have all been quite interesting as they are some of the first films to be in sound. While winning entry The Broadway Melody and variety show the Hollywood Revue of 1929 were quite happy to concentrate on being able to broadcast entertaining musical numbers and comedy skits the other films tried to see how far they could push the boundaries. In Old Arizona was the first ever sound film to go outdoors and therefore it seems a little arcane now and I'm never going to be sure about The Patriot because there isn't a print of it in existence any more. However the fifth film from the list - Alibi experiments with various camera angles and sound techniques however at the same time you can really tell that it is an early sound film as the actors themselves are still getting used to having their voices recorded. The basic plot sees gangster Chick Williams released from jail, allegedly for a crime he didn't commit, and start dating cop's daughter Joan. There is then an incident where a policeman is shot and Chick is implicated however he was at the theatre with Joan at the time so he has as the title would suggest - an alibi. The film asks the audience to believe whether Chick has turned over a new leaf or if he is still in league with the old gang. Do we side with the police? Or are they just wanting to frame him especially since Joan's would-be-beau is also a policeman? I actually did get quite into the plot in the later stages of the film and it is fascinating that very little is needed to create this mood.

The acting, I have to say, isn't perfect and a lot of performances, especially those from the police informant and the cop's daughter are laughable. But in the lead role Chester Morris as Chick conveys a very morally ambiguous character who you're not sure whether to trust or not and indeed he was nominated for Best Actor that year. The way the film is shot, especially in the final scenes, is very impressive given the time when it was released and even though some of the fight scenes and the shoot-outs seem very old-fashioned this must have been really revolutionary when it first arrived at cinemas. Although The Broadway Melody is probably a better film structurally, Alibi was possibly the most ambitious of the five films nominated in the academy's second year.