The Glass Alibi

The Glass Alibi is a short, original film-noir mystery played in black and white on a letterboxed silver screen. Port Calloway, 1947: private eye E. Crane takes a late-night visit from torch singer Nora Vale, whose alibi for the killing under Pier 9 is a lipstick-stained glass at the Blue Lantern. Five scenes (office, rain-soaked alley, jazz club, dressing room, fog-bound pier) branch into three endings (Red on the Glass, The Last Ferry, Wrong Song), and whether you solve it depends on noticing one thing. Everything is rendered in greys, with chiaroscuro light cones, rain, grain, vignette and projector flicker, except the single key clue: a crimson lipstick mark in #b3001b that appears on the tube in the gutter, the rim of the glass on table six, the cold-cream rag, and the clue entries in the case file. Narration types out in a period serif, choices arrive as typed index cards, and each scene opens and closes with an iris wipe and a silent-film intertitle.