NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

dglink Sterling Hayden was the image of male masculinity in such films as "The Asphalt Jungle," "The Killing," and "The Godfather." Tall at 6 foot 5 inches, well built, ruggedly handsome in the true sense, Hayden rarely cracked a smile or betrayed a tender emotion. He had screen presence, and that strong image serves him well in 1954's "Naked Alibi." Hayden is Chief of Detectives Joe Conroy, who has been accused of police brutality, an easily believable offense. When Al Willis, a local baker, is pulled in and roughed up by his subordinates, Hayden looks on impassively. Played by Gene Barry, Willis has a devoted wife and a child; his arrest is evidently wrongful, and he is released. When the policeman who roughed up Willis is shot later that night, Hayden immediately hones in on Willis as guilty. With a screenplay by Laurence Roman from a story by J. Robert Bren and Gladys Atwater, "Naked Alibi" plays with the audience. When the police come to arrest Willis after the fatal shooting, he runs, but is caught and brought in again. However, without evidence and under pressure from above, Hayden is forced to release Willis one more time. When two more officers are killed in a bomb blast, Hayden tails and harasses the sympathetic Willis, who seems intent on managing his bakery, tending his family, and remaining a model citizen. However, when Hayden is caught in a photo assaulting Willis, he is fired from the force. Undaunted and convinced by gut instinct of Willis's guilt, Hayden follows Willis, when he unexpectedly leaves town and goes to sleazy Border Town, where, in El Perico, a local dive, pouty singer Gloria Grahame appears on the scene as Marianna, and, to coin a phrase, the plot thickens and starts to boil.The action unfolds against the deep shadows and dramatic lighting of Russell Metty's cinematography, which provides some stunning black and white images. Surprisingly produced by Ross Hunter, the man usually behind lush Lana Turner weepies, "Naked Alibi" is well paced by director Jerry Hopper, who went on to become a prolific director on television. However, the film belongs to Sterling Hayden. Tough and brutal, Hayden is central to the film's success, although Gloria Grahame is also excellent, and Gene Barry is appropriately ambiguous in the pivotal role of Willis. As a bonus, fans of "The Rifleman" will be pleased to spot Chuck Connors in a small role as a police captain. While not at the heights of the best Sterling Hayden classics, "Naked Alibi" is nonetheless a crackling police pursuit drama that engages and entertains.

timshelboy For the first half of this movie we get a rather ordinary policier, with "innocent" Gene Barry seemingly the victim of Bad Lieutenant Sterling Hayden's obsessive violence- Hayden suspects Barry of being a cop killer. Hayden's temper gets him the sack. Things perk up considerably when Barry goes on the run to the border and seeks out old flame Gloria Grahame - and her advent livens things up immensely. We first see her in a sleazy border bar miming and shimmying her way through "ace in the hole", spaghetti straps straining, mouth pouting, earrings dangling. Its an amazing entrance and the director knows it - following her after the number finishes as she fends off drunks and exits the bar to wander back to her room, where Barry surprises her - her complaints about his negligence in the lover department are stilled by a swift slap round her chops - and she of course kisses him more passionately and drags him into the room... discreet fadeout. That whole sequence is essence of Gloria - its all there - the masochistic sexuality, the wisecracks, the wiggling, the face half in shadows, the tawdry glamour, - and my god - that shimmy . The remainder of the film offers few surprises, including Gloria stopping a bullet to aid the hero and expiring glamorously in his arms but it was designed as a follow up to The Big Heat and the public liked it enough to make it a hit.

bmacv The Naked Alibi wastes some potentially terrific talents by forcing them into last-ditch, half-hearted retreads of characters and situations that had already, by 1954 and halfway down the leeward slope of the noir cycle, been done to death – often, in fact, done by these very same actors. That Nordic giant Sterling Hayden, never easy to cast, gives a reprise of a role – the angry cop – that suited him so well he encored it several times, taking his final bow in 1972 in The Godfather. (And, as nasty cops go, maybe only Robert Ryan played it nastier.) Gloria Grahame's kittenish victim had become by this time a staple of the cycle, but it's almost always good to watch her anyway. But so hot on the heels of Fritz Lang's The Big Heat, her role in The Naked Alibi looks very much like the larcenous knock-off that it is, right down to the final, poignant fadeout (and it doesn't help when she makes her entrance – as a nightclub canary – using a dubbed voice).The plot, which loses more credibility every time it takes a new turn, concerns the murder of police officers a smallish California city. Hayden's prime suspect is Gene Barry, but this church-going baker with a submissive wifey fools everybody else. Dogging him relentlessly, Hayden gets thrown off the force and, free-lancing, follows Barry to a wide-open town on the Mexican border where the suspect leads a double life, involving Grahame. Inevitably, Hayden gets involved with her too. Barry finally flashes his true colors and he joins Hayden in pursuing their mutual vendetta. But the working out is perfunctory and predictable, and it goes to show that even marquee stars can't salvage a tired, derivative piece of filmmaking.

jim riecken (youroldpaljim) Has this ever happened to you? I go into my local video store and see a few new arrivals in the "film noir" section. I spy a copy of a new arrival of a film I have never seen called NAKED ALIBI. Its from one of those mail order video companies that offers (mostly) "dupey" looking copies of hard to find titles. The description on the box sounds good. The film has players I like (Sterling Hayden, Gloria Grahame, and Gene Barry). So I take it home and watch it. About ten minutes into this film I started having second thoughts. About half way through this film I started to dislike it. By the time the film ended, I not only disliked it, I despised it. The film opens with cops questioning Al Willis on suspicion of robbery. Other than being drunk, the police have nothing on him. When he pushes a cop and demands to be allowed to go home, the cops beat him up. Detective Conroy arrives, lets the cops finish the beating and then announces Willis is in the clear. Willis swears he will get revenge. Later one of the police officers is shot dead. With no evidence other that Willis is "sore" about the beating, Conroy make Willis his sole suspect, despite the fact that his boss names a pair of mobsters as suspects. Conroy arrests him, but for lack evidence Willis is released. The next day two more cops are killed by a bomb. This time Conroy goes to the Bakery that Willis owns and tries to beat a confession out of him. Conroy doesn't know it but a local newsman whose paper has been accusing Conroys department of police brutality snaps a picture of Conroy trying strangle Willis and Conroy is fired. But Conroy continues his pursuit and Willis flees to Mexico where Willis has a mistress. Conroy manages to convince his mistress (who Willis treats rather rough) to help him prove Willis is a killer. What this film lacks is a convincing script. The script looks as if only a rough draft was written and shooting began before a finished script was completed. Things happen, characters personalities change, plot twists occur for no real reason other than that script calls for it. Other than the fact that Willis likes to tip a glass now and than, there is nothing in the early part of the film to make us think that he is a crazy killer that cheats on his wife. He treats his wife, his kid and employees well. Early in the film, one gets the impression that its Conroy is the one whose is a loose cannon. He seems to casually approve of police brutality. Conroy, for no reason is convinced from the very start Willis has criminal past. He seems to operate on the motto of the old Communist Bulgarian secret police; "Everyone is guilty of something, we just have not found out about it yet." Later Conroy shows kindness to Al's mistress and young son, now we are supposed to like him. Sorry! The early impression I got of Conroy stuck with me too long. And he is also a dumb cop. Only after he is fired and goes to Mexico does he run a background check on Willis and discovers that a warrant is out for him issued in Maryland. Why didn't he think of this before? Because this film hadn't used up enough running time. The cast is good. Gene Barry does well considering how poorly conceived his role of Al Willis is. I'm big fan of 40's and 50's crime thrillers but not only did I not think this film was good, it left a bad taste in my mouth (something many modern films do, but older films rarely do).