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Although the premise was way far-fetched Dark Alibi is nicely done and one of the better Charlie Chan features coming from Monogram. Sidney Toler as Chan takes on a case where time is essential, the life of Edward Earle who was convicted for a robbery/homicide is at stake, he's scheduled to go to the chair in nine days.

Ironically technology has caught up to the events of this film. The idea of forging fingerprints and leaving them at the scene of a crime as a false clue is not anything startling today. In fact it's fairly simple if you want to take the time and trouble to do same. Still in 1946 I'm sure it was a shock to many.

Poor Earle in order to be freed has to find out who put him in the jackpot. And it doesn't take long for Charlie to be convinced of his innocence when on the way to state prison someone takes some sniper shots at him. That by the way was the weakness of the film. No reason to shoot at him yet as he wasn't on to anything yet.

There are more than one individual involved in this, in fact it's quite a list of conspirators. And in fact there is one real big connection to the state prison where Earle is counting down his last hours.

Ben Carter plays one of the prisoners and an old friend of Mantan Moreland playing the Chan family chauffeur Birmingham. These two had a nice comic act before going into films involving them in a conversation where they constantly interrupt each other's words. They know what they're talking about, but poor Tommy Chan played by Benson Fong is standing there without a clue. Wonderful comic timing all around.

Good Charlie Chan film and a masterpiece coming from Monogram.

This is my twelfth review of a Charlie Chan movie in series chronological order on these consecutive days. In this one, a man who's been out of prison for twenty years is suddenly arrested for a recent robbery at a bank he claims he's never set foot in. His daughter and lawyer are on the verge of giving up until Charlie overhears and offers his services...Directed by Phil Karlson who had previously helmed The Shanghai Cobra, he once again provides an exciting beginning and ending sequence for a Chan entry. While I admit to not understanding everything that is going on concerning the case, it was still interesting to hear Charlie's analysis, as always. And despite the now-not-very-acceptable stereotype of a scared black man with bulging eyes in these modern times, Mantan Moreland is still funny to me when he does what he does here. His comedy is perfectly aided, once again, by Benson Fong as "No. 3 Son" Tommy, and Ben Carter in a reprise of his and Mantan's "interrupted talk" from The Scarlet Clue. Even Charlie joins in this routine at the end. Incidentally, Carter would pass away not long after appearing here. Good atmospheric touches throughout. So on that note, I recommend Dark Alibi. P.S. Joyce Compton, who's Emily Evans here, was a native of Lexington, Ky. where I lived as a child from 1974-75 during which my youngest sister was born. Ray Walker, who's Danvers here, was another character actor who appeared in my favorite movie-It's a Wonderful Life-as Joe, a luggage handler who gives the adult George Bailey his suitcase with his name on it as we see James Stewart as the lead character for the first time. Also, on a personal note, I started watching these Monogram Chan movies (usually starring Roland Winters) on my local station here in Baton Rouge on Channel 2, WBRZ-TV, in the late '70s during the late night lineup of movies on Saturday morning on "Charlie Chan Cinema". The wraparound open and closing sequence had someone banging a gong before we dolly to a silhouette of a Chinese man speaking in Pidgin English introducing the movie and mentioning the next week's title, respectively, while the country's type of music played in the background. Actually, since we only see his shadow, I don't know if he was actually Asian or some other race but that was my memory of that sequence...

A bank is robbed, and a guard is shot to death. Clues lead the police to the Foss Family Hotel where we meet a varied group of unsavory suspects.

Thomas Harley, who resides at the hotel along with his beautiful daughter June, is the one that the police are after-- it was his fingerprints left on the safe that led the police to the hotel.

He claims that he was locked up in a theatrical warehouse, but he has no witnesses. Even more suspicious is his story that he had received a letter from a man he hadn't seen for many years, asking him to a meeting at the warehouse; but the prosecutor can prove that the man had been dead for eight years.

Chan thinks the set-up is much too pat, and he doesn't give up on Mr. Harley when Harley's daughter June makes an appeal to him to help free her innocent dad. But how can he account for those fingerprints?

A nice bit of fluff from the Chan series, but not much to dig your teeth into. No one in law enforcement seen anything in the coincidence of three bank robberies solved in the exact same way - the only evidence is fingerprints - with the money never discovered. Of course, Charlie knows that something is going on. The fun cliché of this Chan episode is the warehouse full of theatrical props - like the fun house and the séance, a great setting for a movie mystery.

Prison is never so wacky as when Tommy Chan and Birmingham Brown are let lose - don't fight it, just go with the silliness. Birmingham's brother Benjamin shows up - as a convict, and the duo repeat their stage act for a bit of comic relief.

No dramatic lighting in this one - Monogram wasn't going to pay for fine cinematography. This episode in the series also suffers from a weak female cast - none of the beauties in gowns that fill earlier efforts. The biggest failure is at the very end - the final reveal comes out of nowhere and is over before you can scratch your head. Still, it's a workmanlike Chan, and that's good enough for an hour's fun.

A well done opening scene features a bank break-in and a murdered guard. A suspect is quickly arrested because his fingerprints are found at the scene. Though the suspect's daughter insists he is innocent, he is quickly convicted and the case seems hopeless--until Charlie Chan agrees to investigate, even though the execution is only nine days off.

Mantan Moreland and Benson Fong--as chauffeur Birmingham Brown and number three son Tommy Chan--assist Pop Chan as usual. Sidney Toler drops wisecracks at their expense, also as usual:

Toler: "You two not afraid?" Fong: "Afraid of what, Pop?" Toler: "That you sit down so often you get concussion of brain."

There's plenty of plot, some of it involving the real murderers' ingenious method of planting fake fingerprints. Chan's investigation roams from the rooming house where his client lives to the local prison (where Birmingham and Tommy lock themselves into a cell with gleeful convict Tim Ryan).

It's really not particularly exciting or memorable, but it's easy to watch and doesn't take itself too seriously.

Chan's best line is probably when he is grilling rooming house residents about their pasts: "Skeletons in closets always speak loudest to police."

if you miss this one. It was evident this series was coming to an end (as was Toler's life) in this unrealistic mystery that was held aloft by gimmicks.The comedy of Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) was the only bright spot which carried this movie through to it's conclusion.Although a credible actor,Benson Fong playing Tommy Chan, is just plain flat. Tommy and Birmingham seem to have a free reign in what appears to be a maximum security prison.Much ado here about nothing.

I was a fan of Charlie Chan when the films were first released. I did not realize Sydney was past 70 when he made this movie. There is a lot of humor in the prison scenes. There are a couple of big scenes that come as a surprise for a film that had a shoestring budget. One is the interior of a real prison with the convicts going into their cells in unison. That scene is melded into a stage copy of the same action but slightly more modest. Another scene has a big moving camera set as the cast enters a police lab. There are a lot of familiar faces in the supporting cast. Everyone does a great job with their role. There are some exterior shots of the old cars and trucks which were not that old when the movie was made. This is a good old movie to watch to get a glimpse of what the world was like right after World War II. While watching it you will want to check the ladies hair styles and the interior of the old rooming house and telephones.

Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is asked to prove the innocence of a man already convicted of murder and scheduled to be executed. So Charlie tries to get to the bottom of how the man's fingerprints could have been at the scene of the crime if he was innocent. He's got help from incompetent son Tommy (Benson Fong) and trite comic relief Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). There's a moronic scene where Tommy and Birmingham wander around a prison with no guards even noticing. It's a typically cheap Monogram movie with shoddy writing. Moreland's old vaudeville partner Ben Carter returns for the second time in the series to do one of their old vaudeville routines. It's amusing but essentially the same bit they did the last time. Janet Shaw, Joyce Compton, Teala Loring and Chan regulars Milton Parsons and John Eldredge also appear.

The script is particularly weak. One of the biggest flaws in the Monogram series versus the Fox one is that the scripts are so bad. Often Sidney Toler seems to be padding his lines in an effort to make the scene work. In the older series, particularly throughout the Warner Oland years, Charlie seemed wise beyond his years. In the Monogram films he just seems smug. Don't even get me started on the lack of good aphorisms that Charlie Chan is known for. Here he spouts nonsense about "if tooth is missing, gap will tell us much" or some such baloney.

If you've seen some of the Monogram Chans and liked them, you will probably enjoy this more than I did. If you're new to Charlie Chan movies, do yourself a favor and start with the Fox films. Don't let your first Chan film be from Monogram or you might never want to try another.

Another enjoyable mystery fused with comedy. This time Charlie is hired by the pretty Teala Loring ( sister of Debra Paget and Lisa Gaye) to prove that her father is innocent of a bank job. There's nine days left before he goes to the electric chair, but if there's anyone can prove his innocence it's Charlie Chan. Great surprise ending. Never expected it to be that person ( the main culprit)

The mystery here is not very compelling, which leaves the abundant comedy part that mostly is. Okay, I know the Moreland ("Feets don't fail me now !") brand of silliness is as politically incorrect as can be. But his bits, especially with Ben Carter, are still pretty funny, stereotypes aside. Too bad the weird-looking Milton Parsons (Johnson) doesn't get more screen time. Between him and the jolting Skelton Knaggs, they had the graveyard types of the 1940's all wrapped up.

Seems an innocent man is about to be executed for a robbery and murder he didn't commit. So Charlie has a deadline to meet in clearing him. No dark houses or secret passages here, but there is a prop room full of weird theatrical props (probably Monogram's). Of course, the props meet up with Birmingham (Moreland) creating lots of amusing setups. Fortunately, soon-to-be cult director Karlson keeps things moving in smooth fashion, so we barely notice the skimpy whodunit part. All in all, it's one of the lesser Chan mysteries, but still has compensations.

Usually films with this much activity are cluttered and over- plotted, but it all works reasonably well in "Dark Alibi". It needed padding but rather than slow it down, the producers wisely just kept adding filler bits, so there is a lot going on. The film's basic frame-up concept is good. The police, warden, prosecutor are blended and balanced expertly by the director to advance the plot.

Teala Loring is attractive and a good actress, well suited for this b-movie. The old gent who portrays her father does a good job, too. I can live without the Birmingham and Benjamin corny old vaudeville bit but it was popular in the 1940's era and it is a better filler for padding purposes than most routines (filler was probably necessary due to Toler's health). Benson Fong is inconsequential, he just moves along and tries to keep up with the pace. Janet Shaw delivers one of her insouciant tough girl performances that always keep her watchable in films.

Sidney Toler gets the job done but he really looks ill at times. He manages valiantly to stay active enough to stride across a room now and then, but he is sitting down in some scenes, obviously for health reasons.

Good work by the director, good red herrings, and lots of somewhat overloaded activity provide us with an OK low budget b-movie in "Dark Alibi".

Three ex-cons have been convicted of committing separate violent bank robberies and the last of them is on death row with only 9 days left to go. The local public defender has doubts about their convictions - largely on the basis of fingerprint evidence, so he enlists "Charlie Chan" to investigate. Mantan Moreland "Birmingham Brown" and Benson Fong "Tommy - No. 3 son - Chan" chip in well as our Oriental sleuth uses his fiendishly clever deductive mind to prove the fingerprints are a forgery and to reveal the true perpetrators. This is a fun, quick-moving little crime caper done on a pretty tight budget. If you like the genre, then this is one of the better stories.

Thomas Harley, a former criminal who's gone straight for years, is suddenly arrested for bank robbery and the murder of a guard - and although he insists that he was locked up in a warehouse at the time the crime was committed, his fingerprints are found on the scene of the crime; and so he's trialled and sentenced to death...

Since his daughter June is convinced that her father is innocent, she begs Charlie Chan to take on the case; and since he remembers immediately that there have been two very similar cases in the last years, he starts investigating: at the hotel where Harley stayed, which is led by Mrs. Foss, a social worker who helps former convicts to start a new life. But all the people staying at the hotel seem in some way connected either to the warehouse where Harley was locked up, or to the other two banks that were robbed in different cities, or to the prison where Harley had been years ago...

And then Charlie gets a seemingly crazy idea: could it be able to FORGE someone's fingerprints and 'plant' them on the scene of a crime? He comes to the conclusion that there's something going on at the prison's fingerprints department; and, at the risk of his own life, he tries once more to prove his theory's right, to find the real culprits, and to save a man from being murdered 'accidentally' by the State...

A VERY clever and suspenseful piece of crime fiction, set partially at the creepy theatrical warehouse and partially in prison - but wherever they are, Charlie's 'sitting assistants', as he calls them, Tommy and Birmingham find time for hilarious jokes and hopeless confusion; but this time, they prove REAL helpful to Charlie, too! And when Birmingham plays the 'unfinished sentences game' again with his brother Benjamin (who's doing time in the 'cooler'), even 'Pop' joins in this time, and Tommy's the only one who doesn't get a thing!

ABSOLUTELY worth watching, not only for fans of the series, but for every friend of good old-fashioned crime entertainment; one of the very best of the Monogram 'Charlie Chans'!

Charlie Chan agrees to help a man who has been wrongly convicted of murder during a bank robbery. Even though his fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime, he swears he's never been in that particular bank. In nine days, he faces a date with the executioner if Chan can't prove his innocence.

I've never been much of a fan of the Monogram Chan films. In general, I find them too short on plot and too long on comedy. And that's the case with Dark Alibi. The film runs about 61 minutes in length. I didn't pull out a stopwatch or anything, but I'd wager that no more than 20 minutes is spent on plot development. One of my favorite bits in most Chan films are the suspect interrogations. Here, Chan runs through all of them at breakneck speed. So our one chance to get to know something . . . anything about the characters is gone. Instead, we're treated to multiple scenes of Benson Fong and Mantan Moreland creeping around in the dark or talking about nothing. Admittedly, the scenes with Moreland and partner Ben Carter doing their vaudeville comedy bit are truly amazing and the film's highlight, but after the third such scene (when Chan embarrassingly joins in), I realized that this too was just padding. Overall, it's just a weak, rushed story that offers little of what I enjoy about watching a Chan film.

Dark Alibi does feature a few familiar faces in the supporting cast - John Eldredge, Russell Hicks, and Milton Parsons. At first glance, none of these names may mean much, but any fan of older movies will have undoubtedly seen their work. Unfortunately, in the case of Parsons, he's criminally underutilized here much to the movie's detriment.

4/10

Most of the movies in the Charlie Chan series were bona-fide mysteries that were short on plot credulity and laced with a measure of comic relief throughout. "Dark Alibi" falls in line with this tried and true formula, but somebody dumped in an overload of comedy and nearly spoiled the whole picture. There are a lot of suspects to choose from in the clever plot in which we have to figure out who is the bank robber/murderer who masterminded the crime and used someone else's fingerprints to frame an innocent man. Not bad, huh? Even though the story is a little hard to swallow it gets points for creativity. However...

No question Mantan Moreland is a funny guy and gets a lot of mileage here with his pop-eyed, 'feets-do-your-duty' scared stiff routine. He is almost hung out to dry with it, and coupled with some misguided scenes with Benson Fong as two incompetents, it is all too much. The picture could have been 15 minutes shorter without some of the excruciating hi-jinks involving these two. The cast was a good one, production values were very good and the film did not betray any trace of a Poverty Row production. Recommended for Charlie Chan fans and for those who enjoy a mystery in which the murderer is very tough to spot (and don't worry too much about the details).

This is one of those eleventh hour, he's going to be executed, thrillers. A man who spent time in prison is railroaded for murder. Somehow, his fingerprints were found at the scene and he has been sentenced to die. His daughter knows her father and because his alibi can't be confirmed, there is little hope. Charlie comes to the rescue. He can't resist a pretty face. Soon he is embroiled in an effort to find out how to leave false fingerprints. As is usually the case, Birmingham Brown and Tommy Chan do everything they can to mess up the case. I suppose if these were serious mysteries, their actions would be deplorable. Mantan Moreland gets tons of screen time, and though he represents a black stereotype, he is really quite funny. The best is when he encounters his friend played by Ben Carson and they do their famous vaudeville bit. This is pretty entertaining and allows for levity. The last minute is a lot of fun.

I wanted to enjoy some classic detective work with an Asian flare.

Sadly, all we get is the usual diet of racism.

Yes white people, we were fostered and bred on supremacy and racism.

Then again, I imagine many cultures, especially militaristic ones, breed racism in one form or anyone.

Oh well.

I know this episode, Dark Alibi, drives people crazy, but I love it.

Without the fillers, the movie would run about ten minutes.

Charlie (Sidney Toler) volunteers to help a man, Thomas Harley, going to death row to prove his innocence.

The problem? His fingerprints are at a robbery/murder scene, and this man claims he was never there. There's another problem. Fifteen years ago, he was in prison.

Charlie sets out to prove that somehow, the fingerprints are forged. This means a trip to the prison and a study of past robberies where, in fact, the person convicted claimed he was not present.

That's the story. We know today fingerprints can be forged, but it's a lot of work for Charlie and team to get there.

While at the prison, Birmingham (Mantan Moreland) runs into a man he says is his brother Ben (Ben Carter).

The two of them do their marvelous routine of cutting the other one off mid-sentence. "I didn't know you were seeing..." "Oh, yes, I've been keeping company with her." "But isn't she..." "No, she's lost a lot of weight." And so on. Meanwhile Tommy Chan (Benson Fong) can't follow a word they're saying.

It's hilarious, and it's a routine they did called Pidgin English, an act they did before getting into films. Sadly, Carter died of diphtheria shortly after filming this.

Carter was so excellent in "Crash Dive," where he plays a member of Tyrone Power's submarine team, as a complete equal with the other men.

When Charlie, Birmingham, and Tommy go to a theater warehouse, Birmingham nearly has a nervous breakdown. Another very funny scene.

I suppose this kind of thing is considered un-pc today, but Moreland was a wonderful talent. I love his line deliveries. He and Benson Fong play beautifully off of one another.

When one of the characters dies, Charlie runs out and lifts her wrist - she died seconds earlier and she's already in rigor mortis. Had to chuckle.

Phil Karlson directed this, and he did a great job - there are some interesting angles and shadows, and scenes in what looks like a real prison.

HIghly enjoyable.