NAKED ALIBI: Blu-ray (Universal-International, 1954) Kino Lorber

A rough n’ tumble kind a gal with the proverbial heart of gold, a hot-headed two-bit thug leading a double life, and, a disgraced good cop with nothing to lose. Director, Jerry Hopper’s Naked Alibi (1954) starts out with all the essential ingredients to make a great noir thriller, yet somehow manages to turn gold into gumbo on a contrived narrative we have seen a thousand times over. Lawrence Roman’s screenplay is a veritable potpourri of clichés and failed attempts to generated mounting suspense, instead, parceling off the thrills in a few vignettes that, cumulatively, never add up to anything better than one marginalized whodunit. Sterling Hayden is Chief Joe Conroy, a self-made, but obsessively-driven officer of the law who fumbles his advantage against two-bit goon, Al Willis (Gene Barry); a seemingly innocuous baker, accused of gunning down one cop - Det. Lt. Fred Parks (Max Showalter, billed as Casey Adams), and blowing up another two (Mike Mahoney and Byron Keith) with a car bomb. Conroy wants to nail Willis to the wall – and persists in dogging his every step. This, however, leads to complications as Willis’ Sweet Polly Purebred of a wife, Helen (Marcia Hendersen) is not about to let her hubby go down without a fight. Helen’s a straight arrow, and, firmly invested in her husband’s innocence. She plays by the rules, hiring an attorney, Gerald Frazier (Paul Levitt); then, telephoning her Councilman, Edgar Goodwin (Frank Wilcox) and Police Commissioner, F.J. O’Day (Fay Roope) to get Conroy off Willis’ back. While Conroy superficially agrees to ease up on his suspect, in fact, he redoubles his efforts, putting Capt. Owen Kincaide (Chuck Connors) on Willis as a tail, having Willis repeatedly picked up for questioning, and finally, arriving at his place of business with a search warrant for a rare German pistol, presumed used in Parks’ murder.

But when a reporter takes a candid photo of what appears to be Conroy assaulting Willis without provocation, Conroy is immediately fired and leaves the department in disgrace. Undaunted, Conroy asks a friend on the force, Matt Matthews (Don Haggerty) to shadow Willis. The result: Willis gets antsy and departs on an extended trip to Border City where, we quickly learn, he has a gal on the side; the sultry – if ever so slightly beat up chanteuse, Marianna (Gloria Grahame); who lives in a crowded tenement with her Uncle Charlie (Paul Newlan) and his young son, Petey (Billy Chapin). Willis wastes no time getting passionately reacquainted with Marianna. Despite her world-weary exterior and savvy as a girl who’s been around, she continues to harbor a soft spot – either in her heart or head – for this uncouth bully with a psychotic streak. In the meantime, having been tipped off about Willis by Matt, Conroy arrives in Border City and is quickly taken advantage of by a trio of hoodlums, intent on robbing and leaving him for dead in a back alley. Petey discovers Conroy, unconscious, and with Uncle Charlie and Marianna’s help, manages to nurse him back to health. Discovering Marianna and Willis an item, Conroy plays it cagey at first, unaware Marianna has already discovered the reason for his being in town. She confronts Willis with the fact he is already married. He feigns a separation from Helen and vows to make an honest woman of her. But by now, Marianna can see Willis for who and what he truly is – a thug, unapologetic, as he tosses a bartender (William H. O’Brien), who has accidentally bumped into him, over a railing – severely injuring the man.

Wanting nothing more to do with Willis, Marianna sides with Conroy in his quest to bring Willis to justice. After a rough and tumble brawl in a bar, and, barely disarming Willis in a back alley, Conroy manages to force Willis into a getaway car, held at gunpoint by Marianna as the trio drive back to town where Conroy is eager to expose Willis, both for his double life, and, as a cop killer. Earlier, Kincaide made Conroy aware of a curious instance where Willis left his wife and business to go to the nearby church after midnight.  Having deduced this is where Willis has hidden the German pistol used to shoot Parks, Conroy is eager to search the church now. Alas, Willis’ henchmen have sworn out a warrant for Conroy’s arrest. The police, believing the worst about Conroy, comply, and, on several occasions, Conroy narrowly avoids being picked up by highway patrolmen as he recklessly drives back into town. Willis manages an escape. Certain he is headed to the church to dispose of the evidence, Conroy orders Marianna to call for help while he pursues Willis. Instead, Conroy is picked up by officers and Marianna hurries to church to intercept her former lover. She does, but Willis holds her at gunpoint as Conroy, presumably having convinced his men to follow, has now brought down the wrath of the entire police force, including the commissioner, to witness Willis’ crime. Cornered, Willis takes Marianna to the roof, barricades the door, and then proceeds to have a violent shootout with the police in between leaping from rooftop to rooftop in his failed escape. Willis mortally wounds Marianna, who dies in Conroy’s arms, moments before Willis himself loses his grip on a gabled roof and falls several stories to his death. Before she expires, Marianna confesses to Conroy they have met one another too late. Conroy departs the crime scene fully exonerated, presumably, soon to be reinstated as Chief.

Naked Alibi is overwrought noir tripe at best. Russell Metty’s cinematography manages to make the most out of the familiar Universal back lot facades we have seen in countless movies and TV shows; the town square, rented out and seen in such high-profile movies of the day as Stanley Kramer’s Inherit The Wind and Disney’s Pollyanna (both made and released in 1960) later used for the flashback sequences in the Back to the Future franchise (1985-90), and the cul-de-sac from Bewitched (1984-72), not to mention, a row of houses and streets, frequently subbed in for the fictional Cabot Cove on Murder She Wrote (1984-96), clearly identifiable at a glance. It still might have worked if the performances being given here were not of such a ‘phoned in’ and hand-me-down quality. It takes nearly 30 minutes to introduce us to Grahame’s Marianna, and thereafter, her purpose in this meandering plot veers from bad to good girl. Grahame’s moll, (her singing voice unconvincingly dubbed by Jo Ann Greer) just seems like a summer stock derivative of the slinky sex kitten she played in The Big Heat (1953). Sterling Hayden’s meaty-fisted cop plays like the other half of that Janus-faced splendid bugger with a chip on his shoulders, first revealed to us as part of the criminal element in 1950’s The Asphalt Jungle.

Hayden plays Conroy as though he were a block of granite – or rather, a block-headed stump, impenetrable to fear or the good sense God gave a lemon. He would rather risk his career on a whim (nevertheless, to be true) than play by the rule book and still – likely – achieve the same results in the end. Guys with nothing to lose can make for scintillating screen studs. But Hayden’s Conroy comes across as more of a goon, just lucky enough to have made the force and risen through its ranks to become Chief of Police. However, the biggest misfire herein is Gene Barry’s Al Willis. Does it make any sense – common or of the movie-land ilk - Willis, who has begun anew with a wife and a respectable business that isn’t a front for some other illegal activity, and, is basically leading a ‘clean’ life with a young daughter, should suddenly risk it all on a trio of murders, after slipping into the part of a psychotic cop killer for being picked up on a drunk and disorderly charge? Sure, later on we learn Willis is wanted out of state on other more sinister charges. But this just seems like a tacked-on entanglement to convince us his Jekyll and Hyde double life is plausible. And Willis’ daughter is at least 2-years old. Has Marianna really been waiting for him all this time without a word of encouragement? In the end, Naked Alibi just plays like a convoluted and overly simplified chase for the man with the face psycho-drama in which the hunted and hunter share far too many character traits to make us care about either of them in any sort of meaningful way.

Naked Alibi arrives on Blu-ray via Kino Lorber’s alliance with Universal Home Video. The results are predictably uneven. While much of the image reveals a nicely contrasted B&W 1080p transfer, with mid-range grain levels, to occasionally distract, and some minor pixelization, leading to background details intermittently breaking apart, and, further marred by a hint of edge enhancement, as well as some light dirt and scratches, several scenes also suffer as muddy, soft and slightly out of focus. It is as though these scenes have been blown up from 35mm negatives, slightly zoomed in and reframed in the editing process.  When the image is solid, it is very solid – with excellent contrast and fine details popping as they should. But the overall characteristic here is inconsistent at best. The 2.0 DTS mono audio is an adequate representation of the old Westrex sound recording system, minus hiss and pop. Kino has shelled out for another commentary from Kat Ellinger – about par for the course of what we are used to hearing from her – some anecdotal stuff, a few facts, but mostly opinion and comments about what we are seeing on the screen. Ho-hum and middling at best. We also get trailers for this and other Kino ‘noir’ product. Bottom line: a so-so police procedural noir given a so-so hi-def treatment. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

2.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

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