This movie is worth watching for the camera work, the set design, and some great scenes, but it's very uneven in just about every aspect. The scenes in the cop's apartment are probably the worst. They just die from bad sound, cheap set, bad dialog, bad lighting, and stilted acting. (As someone else commented, it seems that acting with sound was still being worked out, and these same actors did much better work later.) The scenes in the night club tend to be much more interesting. I love the art deco sets by William Cameron Menzies and the chorus girl dance routines and '20s jazz music. The camera is much more mobile in these scenes, since it isn't focused on dialog. The story flirts with equating the police and thieves as brutal figures outside the law, but it ends up in much more conventional territory, with Chester Morris prefiguring those early Bogart roles of the tough gangster who turns yellow.
There are several sequences -- including the robbery and a later zooming car ride to the scene of the robbery with a camera attached to the front of the car -- that seem to be taken from Fritz Lang, particularly the first Dr. Mabuse serial. They are very well done. The opening prison sequence is very good, as is a later rooftop chase and the final gorgeous artificially-moonlit shot. One of the more interesting sidelights is the violent relationship between one of the gang members and his moll. They're clearly going to love each other to death.
So very much a mixed bag. I've watched it three times, but I hadn't realized until now that it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Art Direction. It definitely deserved the latter, but I'm not sure about the first two. HALLELUJAH! was probably more deserving of a Best Picture nomination, of other 1929 movies I've seen. Still, West is an interesting figure for a number of reasons, clearly influenced by the Germans. I like his silent movie, THE BAT, better than this one, but since I've watched ALIBI three times, it's obviously got something going for it.
There are several sequences -- including the robbery and a later zooming car ride to the scene of the robbery with a camera attached to the front of the car -- that seem to be taken from Fritz Lang, particularly the first Dr. Mabuse serial. They are very well done. The opening prison sequence is very good, as is a later rooftop chase and the final gorgeous artificially-moonlit shot. One of the more interesting sidelights is the violent relationship between one of the gang members and his moll. They're clearly going to love each other to death.
So very much a mixed bag. I've watched it three times, but I hadn't realized until now that it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Art Direction. It definitely deserved the latter, but I'm not sure about the first two. HALLELUJAH! was probably more deserving of a Best Picture nomination, of other 1929 movies I've seen. Still, West is an interesting figure for a number of reasons, clearly influenced by the Germans. I like his silent movie, THE BAT, better than this one, but since I've watched ALIBI three times, it's obviously got something going for it.