clanciai Review of Dual Alibi

Dual Alibi (1947)

A shocking circus drama on the trapeze with Herbert Lom outstanding in double leads

[10/10 · 2 December 2020]

Herbert Lom as a pathetic sandwich man emerges from the rain together with a bunch of bums in a similar situation, the circus director comes out and finds them a sorry lot and tell them to get fixed up with some clown paint. They do so, and when they are at it the circus director recognizes Herbert Lom as a former star acrobat of his, and the sad, indeed the devastating tragedy unfolds. They were two, and they were twins, doing a fabulous act on the trapeze, and for the finale of the act one of them had to take a great risk, and they always tossed a coin about whom it would be. They manage well, until a lottery ticket and a woman importune. The main problem is that the woman has a male partner, who is the villain in the play. He gets his punishment, but she does not, and her finally getting into hysterics (for the second time) is not a settlement enough for her, and you have to leave the film with the trauma of deep injustice weighing heavily on your mind, as you would hope it would weigh on hers, which it probably did, for the rest of her life... It's a terrible tragedy, as the innocents are mortally damaged beyond repair, while the scoundrels are not punished enough... One reviewer noted that this was the real thing of a noir, and it truly is. It couldn't be more noir nor more true as a noir. The dark doom is hanging irrevocably over the drama from beginning to end, and although there is one survivor, no happy end could possible be pasted to this one, and one can only imagine the dwindling spiral of his remaining pathetic life going further down the drain to reach no bottom.... To this must be added the great credit of the music by Stanley Black, which makes every scene at the circus extra mesmerizing, and it should also be noted as a further plus to the film, making it even more remarkable and unique, the fantastic cinematography in shooting the trapeze acrobatics scenes. No doubt this must have influenced Carol Reed in his film "Trapeze" with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis eight years later.