Strange Alibi

Similar premise to Beyond a Reasonable Doubt - a man undercover, the man who put him there dies, and he is sent to prison.

In Strange Alibi, Arthur Kennedy is police officer Joe Geary, who goes undercover to ferret out corrupt police officers. He winds up arrested for the murder of the Chief, the very man who sent him undercover, with the one witness on the lam.

Arthur Kennedy was always terrific, and he's ably supported here by Florence Bates.

This is the type of film Warners excelled in, and while it's just a programmer, it has some exciting scenes.

Baby boomers will see William Hopper, Perry Mason's Paul Drake, as a clerk, and the original Perry White of TV's Superman (John Hamilton) as a judge. Howard daSilva is a sadistic guard.

Some trivia - Florence Bates was the first woman to practice law in Texas.

Arthur Kennedy is a police sergeant who goes undercover to root out crooked cops, only to get framed by those very cops for the murder of the police chief he was working for, and winds up being sent to prison. Kennedy, in an early role, is quite good and the film is chock full of the great character actors that pop up in these neat old Warners "B"s--guys like Jonathan Hale, Dick Rich, John Ridgely, Ben Welden and, in a scene-stealing role, Howard Da Silva as a sadistic prison guard. Director D. Ross Lederman, an old hand at these kinds of pictures, keeps things moving at lightning speed, and it has the sneering thugs, tough cops, gun molls with a heart of gold, screaming sirens, screeching tires, breakneck car chases and everything else that made so many of the Warners "B" pictures of the '40s worthwhile. Check it out.

Detective Arthur Kennedy hits chief of police Jonathan Hale and gets booted from the force. But don't worry; it's a frame-up so Kennedy can go undercover to investigate who killed an important witness. When Hale is killed, Kennedy is framed and winds up in prison. Can he escape? And how can a corpse prove his innocence?

This Warner Brothers B movie sure packs a lot of plot switches into its 62 minutes, something that's possible because it's Kennedy in the lead, one of the premier character actors of the movies, given a rare lead because it is, after all, a cheapie. That's probably why they got away with so much police corruption on view, and even Howard Da Silva as a brutal prison guard. With Joan Perry, Florence Bates, and Stanley Andrews.

An important witness is killed and the suspect dies in police custody. Police Chief Sprague sends Joe Geary (Arthur Kennedy) into undercover to infiltrate the crime syndicate. Sprague gets killed and Joe is wounded. Joe gets framed. Nobody believes that he was working undercover other than his girlfriend Alice Devlin (Joan Perry).

This WB gangster police crime drama thriller is mostly a fairly good B-movie. None of it really stands out. Kennedy is fine and the story keeps on moving. The movie doesn't really let anything stand still. The second half is less reasonable. The criminals would be trying to kill him in prison to tie up any loose ends. Anyways, his status as a former cop would definitely gets him killed right away. It does have some fun escape action and nobody cares about realism.

Often ridiculous but breathlessly paced and mostly entertaining. It's got all of the Warner Brothers staples: quick pace, lots of gun play, average looking leading man with above average acting ability (in this case a very young Arthur Kennedy) and a convincing rough and tumble feel. (You sometimes fear for the actors' safety.) It also has the great Howard Da Silva stealing every scene he's in as a sadistic prison guard.

Sacrifices logic for speed. Hey, plausibility slows things down. A standard undercover-cop-stuck-in-prison flick, though a bit more interesting because of its cast.