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So much average

Expected more

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Review - Dark Alibi, Released 5-25-46 This Monogram Charlie Chan movie was maybe the last in the series where Sidney Toler was on camera frequently, i.e. most of the scenes, after the initial setup murder-robbery. Considering the actor was 73 years old at the release date, and lived less than a year afterward, kudos should be given just for showing up at the studio. As a fan of the entire Warner Oland-Sidney Toler series, there was not a dissatisfying movie of the entire lot; buy the premise, buy the program. The story centers on the framing of certain convicts' fingerprints appearing at the scenes of bank robberies and at least one murder to start our movie. The guilty party is sentenced for execution, convicted of the murder of a bank guard and the robbery of a bank vault. It is for Charlie Chan to work the odds of determining the real perpetrators, bring them to justice while freeing the doomed man framed for the crime. The warden of the prison asks Charlie how is it possible to exonerate the condemned man. Charlie's reply, the man dies without his efforts to save him. Questioning each and every person possibly involved leads to an entertaining hour of tracking the guilty parties, and there are a few, this is not isolated to one killer and robber. Each person living at a hotel has a story connected in some way to the resident innocent victim. Charlie works the crowd of suspects knowing the real guilt falls in part upon the hotel residents and a third person located in the prison, but not a convict. Charlie has multiple scenes among the hotel, the prison and the police lab; all are important in solving the crime. The ending occurs in the prison with the warden arresting the third party, responsible for masterminding the felony-robbery.Watch Chan work his clues finding the guilty while freeing the convicted. There is relief found in the son offering his hand in solving the crimes, and the vaudeville routine breaks the detective work, only to provide comical pause.

If there is one thing that distinguishes (somewhat) this particular Charlie Chan outing from the others, is that it has a higher-than-usual number of laugh-out-loud lines. An example:Birmingham: "Is this the shortest way to prison?" Chan: "No, shortest way is commit crime!" No. 3 son: "We'll have to try that sometime...what am I saying?" Chan: "You surprise yourself, eh? Usually you surprise me!"There is the customary padding (the sequence where Chan's assistants are bumbling about in a dark warehouse), and the customary last-minute surprise killer. This entry has so many bad guys, that you're bound to be surprised by at least one of them! ** out of 4.

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'!

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.