Mice and Men

Maybe everybody in the whole damn world's scared of each other.

Of  Mice and Men

John Steinbeck

1937 

                    Neither the book or the 1939 movie version qualify as either Hardboiled or Noir in any way but both have a gritty Depression era quality to attract us nonetheless.

John Steinbeck

More Darkness Ballads

Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday
Dark is the Night, Cold is the Ground - Blind Willie Johnson
St James Infirmary - Bobby Bland
Cycles - Frank Sinatra
I Put a Spell on You- Screamin Jay Hawkins
A Stranger in the House - George Jones
Russian Lullaby - Ella Fitzgerald
Hello Walls - Willie Nelson
Have you Ever Seen Dallas (from a DC9 at Night) - Flatlanders
Almost Blue - Chet Baker
Home is Where the Hatred Is - Esther Phillips

images Jean Pierre Leloir

William Gottlieb

Lee Miller

                                                   Outwardly an angel, inwardly a demon.

                        Lee Miller

Miller by Man Ray

James Wong Howe

Sweet Smell of Success

Body and Soul

He Ran All the Way

Pursued

Seconds

Hud

Outrage

Wong Howe on set

Hombre

Waiting for a Train

All around the water tanks
Waiting for a train
A thousand miles away from home
Sleeping in the rain

I walked up to a brake-man
To give him a line of talk
He said 'if you've got money
I'll see that you don't walk'

Waiting for a Train
(J. Rodgers)
Merle Haggard
1969

image
Joel Jensen

Higgins Noir

   From the author of Friends of Eddie Coyle the new Brad Pitt Noir Killing Them Softly is getting some good reviews and hopefully is a fitting tribute to George V. Higgins the Boston writer we, as Hardboiled purists, know and love.

Canvas Noir

The crowd sat hushed
You could hear the muffled
Sound of the fighters feet
As they shuffled
Around and around them
The referee went
Head thrust out
Knees bent
He crouched
Watching
Intent

from
The Set-up
Joseph Moncure March
1928

Classic Fragments 5- The End of Spicer

                 From 1947 the legendary Brit Noir Brighton Rock based on the book by Graham Greene who also  provided the written sources for Third Man and The Quiet American.

Best Century Noirs

Memento
Just Another Love Story
Valley of Elah
Consequences of Love
History of Violence
No Country for Old Men
Sexy Beast
A Prophet
Missing Person
Drive
In the Mood for Love
Eastern Promises
Red Belt
Dirty Pretty Things
Ghost Writer

No Room for Doubt

You caught me guilty
Taking the pieces of you
That night you took flight
I couldn't decide what to do
I won't let a safe bet
Continue to make me go blue


No Room for Doubt
Lianne La Havas
(La Havas/ Mason)
2012

illustration
Morgan Kane

Stand-Up Noir

       I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do.
                                                              ~~~~~~~~~~
             I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like : 'What i'm going to be if i grow up'.                  


Lenny Bruce

Bill Brandt

Un Flic

Another excellent Neo Noir directed in 1972 by the great Jean Pierre Melville in what turned out to be his last film. It is full of steely blues and rain soaked greys and icy performances from Delon and Deneuve.

Melville on set