Dark Alibi

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 convinces Chan that they are on the right track. He believes that the fingerprints at the crime scene must have been placed there by someone else.

When Chan looks into the other robberies he finds that the modus operandi was always the same, and the perpetrators ended up in the same prison. It also turns out the quiet "Miss" Petrie is actually married; her husband is Jimmy Slade, a convict who works in the prison's fingerprint department.

Later Miss Petrie is run over and killed by a truck outside the warehouse, and Johnson is at the scene when Chan arrives. Chan returns to the prison to check out the fingerprint department, and discovers that someone has exchanged the print cards. Miss Petrie's husband Slade hears of Chan's suspicions and attempts to escape, but is wounded when his gun explodes.

Slade dies from his wounds without revealing any information, and Chan demands new prints from everyone living in Harley's building, including Johnson. He discovers that Johnson's prints are all over one of the print cards in the prison.

Chan returns to the warehouse again, and finds the equipment used to forge fingerprints in the truck that ran Petrie over. Chan is discovered by Danvers at the warehouse. It turns out Danvers has killed Johnson to stop him from talking, and now he tries to kill Chan for the same reason. He fails and is arrested for all the robberies. Harley is released from prison. Chan tells Harley that June's boyfriend Hugh Kenzie was the leader of the robbers, and that he framed Harley because Harley opposed his marrying June.^[1]

• Dark Alibi at IMDb
• Dark Alibi at AllMovie
• Dark Alibi at the TCM Movie Database
• Dark Alibi at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Dark Alibi is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
• Dark Alibi film details at The Charlie Chan Family Home