Naked Alibi (1954) is a weirdly unconvincing noir starring Sterling Hayden, Gloria Grahame and Gene Barry. Barry overacts horrifically as a volatile bakery owner, Hayden is the disgraced ex-police chief trying to prove Barry is a cop-killer, and Grahame is the woman in between. Hayden and Grahame are good actors, and both kind of unusual looking, so they go together well, but this takes place in the world where there are towns called things like Border City, with streets that all curve so you can only see two blocks and not into the Medieval Paris or New York part of the backlot a few hundred yards away. The strange unbelievability of the production is distilled in Grahame's execution of the following peculiarly trashy dubbed musical number in an overlit soundstage Border City cantina with music but no band. Still there is something irresistibly seductive to me about her unusually tiny mouth - I find it hard to look at anything else when she is onscreen. 6/10 overall, but for weirdness it is more of an 8.
The Time of His Life (1955) Offbeat independent British comedy in which a snobbish matron must endure the reappearance of her convict father, whose only desire is to go back to jail where he belongs. It relies mostly on prolonged slapstick and pratfalls for its "laughs" and could have been more amusing if it had simply gone with the appeal of the characters and circumstances. The only face I recognized was bespectacled Richard Wattis. Kind of a chore to sit through, but the organ and vibes soundtrack added a sort of Mr. Hulot emotional appeal and there is a song. 4/10
