Naked Alibi (1954)

Killer of Family Man.

Naked Alibi is directed by Jerry Hopper and adapted to screenplay by Lawrence Roman from the story “Cry Copper” by Gladys Atwater and J. Robert Bren. It stars Sterling Hayden, Gloria Grahame, Gene Barry and Marcia Henderson. Music is by Joseph Gershenson and cinematography by Russell Metty.

Urgh! It’s one of those lesser grade film noir movies from the classic cycle that should have been super, but isn’t. It’s also a Sterling Hayden film that gives his knockers ammunition to call him wooden, yet the tedious direction of Hooper and all round over staging of the production is what’s at fault here.

Plot has Barry (over acting) as a suspected cop killer who walks free to apparently wreak more misery on the police force. Hayden’s stoic and robust detective is not having a bit of it and becomes obsessed with bringing Barry’s edgy character to justice. Grahame slinks into view in shapely fashion after half hour of film, to naturally stir the hornet’s nest still further.

The potential is there for a hot-to-trot noir of psychological substance, a peek under the skin of men teetering on the thin line separating good and bad. Sadly it’s all so laborious and fake, the male actors indulging in what I call auto-cue acting as they act out badly staged scenes. Grahame comes out of it relatively unscathed, while Metty gives the production an atmosphere it doesn’t deserve with some slats and shads dalliances. But really it’s average at best and the cast are wasted. 5/10

This is a pretty mediocre film noir that is really only notable for a superior level of pouting from Gloria Grahame. Gene Barry ("Willis") is the victim of a false arrest and some police brutality so when he is eventually released from custody he declares his intention on having his revenge. When, next evening, a police officer is murdered Detective Chief Sterling Hayden ("Conway") becomes obsessed with bringing Barry to justice - an obsession that costs him his job and leads him to a confrontation with his foe in a rundown village on the Mexican border. The plot is all pretty much ABC, Hayden is pretty dry and and, to be honest, Graham isn't so hot either as "Marianna" but she does have something about her that holds the attention (certainly not her rather curious dance/shimmy routine which is pretty silly). The dialogue is a bit weedy, and maybe if it had lost 20 minutes or so it might have tightened up the rather rambling story a bit but as it is, it's really nothing special.