The Alibi

A pretty good film. It has a strong situation for a Western, one of the best we have seen in some days. We think that a better, more convincing ending might have been written for it. As it is, the outlaw, who in the midst of the desert, made a grinding, ruinous bargain with a miner whose family was dying of thirst, is, later, chased by a posse to the miner's house. The crime they thought he had committed had been perpetrated the very moment the man had been exacting all the miner's hard-earned gold for a little water. The alibi was good. But if the sheriff believed the miner and his wife after the outlaw had died, he might just as well have believed them before. The outlaw's state of mind, after their testimony had freed him, would have been even more interesting than anything in the picture, good as it now is. It is a pretty well acted picture and has some fine scenery. One cannot help thinking that the usual running fight between the outlaw and the posse was what kept it from a better ending. As we said before, it is among the best Westerns we have seen in some time. - The Moving Picture World, August 31, 1912