Ronda nocturna

This crime melodrama isn't terribly easy to sit through today, but you can see why it impressed everybody and got a Best Picture Oscar nomination in 1929-- director West is constantly experimenting with the possibilities of sound, dramatically raising and lowering voice volumes and playing with background noise, music (there's a not-bad dance number that foreshadows Busby Berkeley a little), etc.

If you don't know who Roland West was, after watching this you'll immediately want to see his other work. He pushes the boundaries of the technology of the time to make an outstanding work of art that's still reasonably entertaining even today.

It's obviously apparent that this was made at the time when talking pictures were just being invented but Roland West was not one to be inhibited by the limitations of what logic told him was possible. Aficionados of early talkies will be aware that most 1929 films were pretty awful. With a handful of notable exceptions, they were frequently stagey and static populated by actors seemingly utterly incapable of acting and talking at the same time. This isn't just one of the rare exceptions but an imaginative and beautiful piece of popular entertainment.

Compared with the more "normal" style of acting which we'd see in a year or so, the style of acting here hadn't quite evolved. That stilted and affected style however actually works really well with this picture by enhancing the other worldliness and the feeling of disconnect the characters have from each other and society in general. The mood Mr West creates heavily influenced by German expressionism is an edgy uncomfortable blend of realism juxtaposed with surrealism. It's definitely however not just an exercise in style - this has an abundance of substance too. You soon acclimatise to the acting style, it isn't bad just different although to be honest, Eleanor Griffith isn't good, Regis Toomey is a bit annoying and I'm afraid that to me Mae Busch will always be Oliver Hardy's wife!

Despite the understandable limitations of the production, what's unusual for a 1929 film is that it really engages your mind and immerses your thoughts in its themes. You question who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The police and the criminals aren't black and white - they're all pretty black. What this film then does is punch you in the stomach by making you realise that you were wrong. As it progresses you almost start to side with the criminals, you totally empathise with 'Joan' as she sides with them but then suddenly you realise how wrong you were as the bad guys show their true colours. It's rare for such an old talkie to play with your mind this cleverly.

These days a big topic of conversation is: 'can we trust the police.' Historically trusting the police isn't really a natural state of affairs. There seemed to be a golden age of trusting the Bobby maybe in the fifties but certainly in the twenties and more so in the thirties when The Depression kicked in, for a lot of people in America the police were not trusted. If they needed help or got into trouble, the last people they'd think of calling would be the police, they were not thought of as service to help or protect ordinary people. To a huge proportion of the population, they were just another bunch of hoodlums at war with other bunches of hoodlums. As 'Joan' demonstrates in this story, that sense that they were people to avoid is evoked very effectively. It gives you a genuine taste of the attitudes of the time - an excellent time machine!

In terms of style, although the cumbersome sound cameras restricted Roland West's vision, this almost has the feel of a classic expressionist silent classic. We get flowing camerawork sweeping down and across semi-surrealist rooftops yet still taste the dust and the dirt of the streets. He invites us into this world by occasionally using his camera to give first person point of views and uses his sets to express and accentuate the mood of the characters. Depending on whom we're seeing, their settings reflect their state of anxiety or optimism. For example, as the characters' outlooks turn bleaker, the walls look bigger and the people seem tiny and trapped. The spaces which were once opulent art deco apartments or nightclubs become huge enveloping claustrophobic prisons which again emphasise the hopelessness of those within.

As an insight into pre-Depression American society and how those people thought, this is invaluable. It's also a real work of art but is it something you can sit down with, kick off your shoes and relax with? Yes, it's not quite a classic but being so well produced, the quality is still there and so it's still enjoyable.

Prohibition during the 1920s had federal government law enforcement officers battling a wave of criminals skirting the laws against making, importing and selling illegal alcohol. The violence these gangs were committing was especially highlighted in early 1929 with the well-publicized St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago.

Daily headlines of such killings made the all-talkie movie, April 1929's "Alibi," all the more popular. The Roland West-directed film looked into the tactics some local law enforcement officers took to battle the underworld. In "Alibi," based on the 1927 play 'Nightstick,' Chick Williams (Chester Morris) is framed by police, sending the innocent man to prison. Once released, Williams joins a gang and allegedly kills a cop. "Alibi" was an important movie in early gangster films, a genre launched in the waning days of silent movies and in the beginning of talkies. The film was the first to show an ambivalent, even sympathetic portrait of a criminal, at the same time giving a somewhat cynical eye on police actions. "Alibi" is also one of the first Hollywood films to have a gangster, Williams, whose guilt in a participation of a heist and the murder of an officer, is vaguely shown since he's not clearly seen in either case.

"Alibi" was banned in several cities, including Chicago, whose censors claimed the movie was disrespectful to law enforcement and their procedures as well as displaying the blatant murder of a police officer.

As one of cinema's earliest talkies, "Alibi" reflects an advancement in audible effects. Film historian David Shipman labeled the motion picture as "the first film to use sound imaginatively." Director West's practice of capturing the sound of a police officer's night stick beating against an object in the opening frames sets the movie's tempo. Repeated staccato beats are used throughout the film, especially when a policeman comes across robbers stealing furs from a store. Using his baton at the base of an iron lamp post to signal his colleagues, the patrolman frightens the thieves before he's shot in the back.

"Alibi" received three nominations for the second Academy Awards, including Outstanding (Best) Picture. William Cameron Meniez was nominated for Best Art Direction for his art deco interiors. Chester Morris received his only Academy nomination, this for Best Actor. The 27-year-old actor had only been in bit parts in film, concentrating mostly on the stage and in vaudeville. "Alibi" was his first major role on the screen and his first talkie. He earned his nomination, most critics claim, for the final 10-minutes of the film when he's squirming while a police detective said he's going to shoot him in the back just like Williams did to the cop on the street. In this highly charged sequence, real bullets were fired through the door several times, just missing Morris.

The story here is interesting enough and on its own ensures that no one will feel disappointed at having watched this. Chick Weaver is a gangster just released from prison who hooks up with a "copper's daughter." Unfortunately, he can't go straight and gets involved with a warehouse robbery during which he kills a cop. The rest of the movie essentially deals with his attempts to frame an alibi for himself and with the efforts of the police to find the cop-killer. There are a few points at which the story gets a bit confusing, but it holds your interest well enough as you follow the various characters. What's really most interesting about this, though, is its status as a very early "talkie."

In that sense, I almost saw this serving as a proverbial "missing link" between the silent era and the sound era. There are parts of this movie which are very much like a silent movie - with no dialogue or sound effects other than a musical background. And yet, most of the movie has dialogue, although strangely the accompanying sound effects (ie, the sound of doors slamming, etc.) often seem to be missing. At times, this movie even has, in both sound and picture quality, a very later (say 1950's) feel to it. This diversity of "style" (for lack of a better word) would seem to me to be an example of director Roland West experimenting with this new way of movie-making. The weirdest aspect of this would probably be an extended scene right at the beginning of the movie, where police officers do nothing but bang their billy clubs against a wall for no apparent purpose - except, perhaps, to demonstrate to the audience that this has sound?

This is an enjoyable enough movie, and an interesting look at this transitional era of movie-making. 7/10

Alibi (1929)

** (out of 4)

Early talkie has a gangster (Chester Morris) released from prison and deciding to go straight. He married a police captain's daughter (Mae Busch) but soon afterwards police begin to think he was behind a cop killing. This thing was a huge hit back in the day and even got Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor but time hasn't been too friendly to this thing. Like many early talkies, the film spends way too much time letting the viewing know that it can talk. In fact, the first minute is nothing more than various police hitting their nightsticks up against a wall so that the sound effects can come through. Also with most early talkies, the characters just keep talking and talking and most of the talk has nothing to do with the plot of the film. Director Roland West does a nice job in certain aspects but I guess you can't blame him since I'm sure the studio was wanting to show off this new format. Future Boston Blackie star Morris is good in his role but it's Busch who steals the show. Some might remember her from The Unholy Three as well as several Laurel and Hardy shorts.