Charlie Chan: Dark Alibi

Dark Alibi is a 1946 American film directed by Phil Karlson featuring Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan. It is also known as Charlie Chan in Alcatraz, Fatal Fingerprints and Fatal Fingertips. Thomas Harley, an ex-convict who served time in prison twenty years ago, is wrongfully arrested for a bank robbery he did not commit. The police have found fingerprints on the crime scene, incriminating Harley, even though he was present at the Carey Theatrical Warehouse at the time of the crime. The policemen do not believe Harley's explanation, partly because he claims to have been called to the warehouse by a note from an old cellmate by the name of Dave Wyatt, a man who has been dead for eight years. Subsequently, Harley is sentenced to death for the robbery. He goes to prison to wait for his execution. Harley's daughter June asks private investigator Charlie Chan for help to prove her father's innocence. Hearing about the suspicious circumstances, Chan immediately agrees to take the case. With only nine days before Harley's execution, Chan starts investigating the suspicious note to Harley, and finds out that it was written on a typewriter belonging to Mrs. Foss, Harley's landlady, who often rents to ex-cons. He talks to the other tenants in the building: the poor Miss Petrie, bookkeeper Mr. Johnson, salesman Mr. Danvers, and showgirl Emily Evans, whose work costume was found in the warehouse near the crime scene. Curiously enough, both Danvers and Evans had been in other cities at the time of bank robberies there. On the way to the prison to see Harley, Chan, his son Tommy, and the chauffeur Birmingham are shot at. This makes Chan sure that they are on the right track. He believes that the fingerprints at the crime scene must have been placed there by someone else. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Alibi

LicensePublic Domain