Midnight Alibi

Moviecut—Midnight Alibi

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Midnight Alibi

This movie is a pleasure to watch. It is a romantic gangster comedy. It moves quickly, has several nice plot twists, and allows some involvement with the Richard Bartelmess - Ann Dvorak characters. Bartelmess looks and acts a lot like Robert Armstrong (king Kong) here. After seeing him in several heroic films, it is a little strange seeing him playing a gangster. He's fine and there is a good chemistry with Ann Dvorak. Helen Chandler appears in a couple of flashback scenes with Bartelmess and nearly steals the movie. Basically, it is an entertaining hour long film that holds up well after 86 years.

A real First National oddity, in that it's mostly a Damon Runyon comedy, part of a mini-Runyon wave then in Hollywood ("Lady for a Day," "Little Miss Marker"), but it's also a historical romance. There's a lengthy, sentimental flashback to 1880s New York, where the Sky Masterson-ish Barthelmess plays a different character altogether, a glum office boy romancing the boss's daughter. (He looks 30 years too old, and he's not the most natural Runyon hero in the modern sequences, either.) The screenwriter has the right ear for Runyonese, a mixture of modern '30s slang and fanciful preciousness, and it's certainly a handsome production, especially in the flashbacks. But the tone isn't consistent, the resolution is too pat (the title is something of a plot giveaway), and the always-interesting Ann Dvorak looks a little bored in a conventional-leading-lady role.