Film noir behind the Iron Curtain often dealt with “softer” crimes like government corruption and bookkeeping malfeasance, but Czech director Vladimír Cech’s A 105 p.c. Alibi (US: 105% Alibi) is a good, old-fashioned murder mystery complete with cover-ups, adultery, suicide, and gas poisoning, all encased in a glorious noir setting of dark corners and dingy rooms. When an elder local named Zelinka (Eduard Kohout) is found murdered in his home, Police Captain Milos Tuma (Karel Hoger) and Lieutenant Frantisek Líbal (Josef Bek) cast suspicion on Karel Antoš (Otto Lackovic) and Jirka Broz (Josef Vinklár), two young pals who had stolen and cashed in Zelinka’s winning lottery ticket (the lottery was a common symbol of economic hope in communist cinema). While the suspects had indeed swapped tickets with Zelinka, they deny any involvement in his death, which leads investigators to a parade of suspicious characters, each of whom have a connection to the local Black Rose Hotel. From the opening scene in which townsfolk encircle the bulletin board to check the winning numbers, the film immerses viewers in a visual feast of dark shadows, tense close-ups, encaged stairwells, low-hanging ceiling laps, baroque camera angles, spewing smokestacks, and flashing headlights with Lucký’s organ-enhanced score injecting extra creepiness on occasion. The film was so successful at the box office that Höger and Bek recreated their detective characters for two follow-up films.