Alibi

Paris, 1937. Winckler, who performs telepathy on the stage of a music hall, leaves in the middle of his act and kills an American gangster who is his enemy. He then pays another performer, Helene, to say they spent the night together. But this does not fool Callas, the police officer investigating the killing. He assigns one of his colleagues with the aim of getting close to the woman and making her tell the truth. The film puts the likeness between stage and life, between performance and lying, at the centre of its plot. The account keeps who is playing whom unclear to the end. Erich von Stroheim and Louis Jouvet appear in Pierre Chenal’s eighty four minute French film, completed in 1937.