Double Alibi (1940)
A man's ex-wife is found murdered, and he finds himself to be the prime suspect.
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brilliant actors, brilliant editing
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Two shots are heard in the middle of the night. A woman falls dead. A man flees from the crime scene. A policeman fires at him, wounding him in the arm. Desperate and hunted, the man ends up impersonating a famous crime reporter from another city as he tries to clear his name (the victim happens to be his ex-wife). A female reporter who can never catch a break from her chauvinistic boss realizes who he is, but believes in his story and, instead of turning him over to the police, she assists him in his efforts to discover the truth. Meanwhile, two more people get killed, and the real crime reporter comes to town....More of a film noir with comedic touches than the mystery-comedy I was expecting, "Double Alibi" is mainly worth seeing for its surprising plot resolution which, although probably not unprecedented even at the time, was and still is quite unusual. I watched the movie twice, and yes it's such a simple answer to all the mysteries but somehow you don't think of it or at least I didn't. The cast, led by Wayne Morris and Margaret Lindsay, is more than competent, but this is more of a writers' than an actors' movie. **1/2 out of 4.