Drinking Dark Amber

         Men stand in dark alleys in pools of yet darker shadow, drinking dark amber fluids from flasks that shine like the very grail. Booze here is salvation. The gun a cross. Smoke leaks from square unshaven faces, blue as sadness. Neon signs across the alley are greasy and smeared, buzzing in the never ending rain. Trash scutters along concrete. Sirens blare in the distance. Tail-lights wiggle in sky black puddles; the sky itself  leans like a drunk on the tallest buildings.

The Canonization of Pulp
Greg Bottoms

Gadfly December 1998

Huston Noir

Asphalt Jungle

Freud

Fat City

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Kremlin Letter

Maltese Falcon

Key Largo

The Misfits

John Huston

with Marilyn Monroe

Chinatown

Lost Motel

                                 
           It has always seemed to me to be the perfect setting for at least part of a Noir movie or Hardboiled novel. The bleak motel on outskirts of town or stranded out on a lost highway.
           Everything from Detour to No Country for Old Men, Memento, Name of the Game is Death, then Identity and even Psycho have used the desolate or run-down locale.

Poet of the Loser

            One of the most gifted of all the great underground Noir writers Goodis was out of print in America for decades after his early death at age 49. He is looked upon as the 'Doomed Poet' amongst Hardboiled writers and critic Dave Moore describes how Goodis used many devices to enhance his books such as something Moore describes as 'thing' language - quoting examples such as ' The empty room looked back at him'  and 'quiet came in and sat down'.
            Possibly one of the most chilling parts to any Noir novel is the celebrated dialogue sequence between Parry and his dead friend Felsinger which took place in Dark Passage.

           Goodis also spent time in Hollywood attempting to break into screenwriting but after some successes his legendary status remains in the novel of the misfit who's down on his luck.

Best source of info for fans of Goodis is http://www.davidgoodis.com/  

On my Feet

                   I got up on my feet and went over to the bowl in the corner and threw cold water on my face. After a little while i felt a little better, but very little. I needed a drink, i needed a lot of life insurance, i needed a vacation , i needed a home in the country. What i had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room ................


Raymond Chandler
Farewell My Lovely
1940

On the Way

Poet of the Loser- David Goodis

The Lost Motel - Wrong Turn to Hell

Detour - Noir in It's Purest Form

Graphic Noir - Drawing into the Dark

Costume Noir - Welles to Reign of Terror

Green Felt Jungle

House of Games

Bob Le Flambeur

Casino

Gilda

Croupier

Hustler

Hard Eight

Atlantic City

The Gambler

The Good Thief

Too Far Behind

            Oh, it was so dark along this street. Just that hooded, half dimmed light on the other side, too far behind me to do any good any more. Looking downward into the little pool of it's own reflection, like a discreetly retiring eye refusing to see what happened to me...... A car passed once in a while, but even that was nothing, just a swift black shape hastening along on the black tide with a glint of silver at it's prow.

The Black Angel
Cornell Woolrich
1943