Cheap Reward

All the signposts on this road that point one way

Don't act like you're above me, just look at your shoes

I'll turn the light out now cos there's nothing more to say

And it's all been lost before so there's nothing more to lose

Cheap Reward

(Costello)

Elvis Costello

1977

image Peter Lindbergh

reblogged from hotparade

New Noir

Killing Them Softly

Rampart
Hotel Noir
I Anna
Killing Them Softly
Deadfall
Love Crime
Killer Joe
End of Watch
The Iceman

Hotel Noir

        All of these either recently released or due out soon to varying degrees of praise.

Sweet Poison

     Reading Bukowski in my cab
     And it's like sweet poison in my veins
     I haven't had a day off in 13 days
     I feel crusty and psychotic
     And i dream of a beer
     The way a man dreams of
     The nape of his lover's neck

Cabbie
Nick Plumber

from
Modern Drunkard Magazine

Classic Fragments12- In the Club

             The nasty club scene from Odds Against Tommorow made in 1959, significantly later than Touch of Evil, and therefore as society began to change reflecting some race issues of it's time.

Something Turns

    Once a woman turns against you, forget it. They can love you, then something turns in them. They can watch you dying in a gutter, run over by a car, and they'll spit on you.

Charles Bukowski
Women
1978

image Kirsten Heiberg
reblogged from 
Film Noir Photos

Restless

                If you're a sucker for spy thrillers set in wartime and played out over three hours in two-parts then this, based on William Boyd's book and starting on BBC this month, may do the trick.

Never Come Morning

        He forced himself to look ; thousands of little people and hundreds of bright little stands, and all over it the coal-smoke pall of the river factories and railroad yards. He saw in that moment the whole dim-lit city on the last night of summer; the troubled streets that led to the abandoned beaches, the 'For Rent' signs above overnight hotels and furnished basement rooms, moving trolleys and rising bridges ; the cagework city beneath a coal-smoke sky.

Never Come Morning
Nelson Algren
1942

image
Andre Kertesz  
West 134th street 
New York 1944

Saul Leiter

Time is a Thief

Yes time is a thief that will steal your tomorrows

And leave only yesterday

Yes, time is a thief that will rob you of your years

Your youth the only ransom you can pay

Time is a Thief
(M. Newbury)
Solomon Burke
1967

image
Willy Ronis 
Paris 1950

Le Carre

images
Paul Buckley/ Greg Kulick

Jazz Noir 2

             Music was our wife and we loved her. We stayed with her, clothed her, and put diamond rings on her hands.

Lionel Hampton

image
Francis Wolff
(Hank Mobley-
Saxophonist) 1965

Psycho Noir

Hitchcock made this a landmark in the development of modern Horror but many would say that up to the point where Leigh pulls up at the Bates motel it shows many strong touches of Noir.

Long Road Home

        Steering with my elbows, i took my cigarettes out and lit one, placing my hands on the wheel before i went off the road. Eventually i could stand the radio no longer and shut it off, locking myself in a steel box with my thoughts. I could hear the wheels hammering the road with a new found importance, hurtling toward the end of my journey.

Catharsis
The Long Road Home
Willis Gordon
2011

image 
Ernst Haas
New York 1960

Playing at Games

   When we played our charade
   We were like children posing
   Playing at games, acting out names
   Guessing the parts we played

   Fate seemed to pull the strings
   I turned and you were gone
   While from the darkened wings
   The music box played on


Charade
(Mancini/ Mercer)
1963

image 
Lillian Bassman
Harpers Bazaar

Ellroy - Demon Dog

             This gives a hint of the grittiness within Ellroy's Los Angeles depicted so well in his books so far. You can tell the love he has for his hometown and it's status in Noir.

Devil Noir

                           The devil's best trick was to convince us he doesn't exist.

Baudelaire

image
Vaclav Chochola
Prague 1943

Films Soleil 3

Save the Tiger

To Live and Die in L.A

Reservoir Dogs

Night Moves

The Changeling

Jackie Brown

Ask the Dust

Soldier's Story

Drive

White Sands

Just Like Smoke

    Ah you hate to see another tired man
    Lay down his hand
    Like he was giving up the holy game of poker
    And while he talks his dreams to sleep
    You notice there's a highway
    that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder
    It is curling just like smoke above his shoulder

The Stranger Song
(Cohen)
Leonard Cohen
1967

image
Aubrey Bodine

Stray Bullets

from Stray Bullets 
Stories and Illustrations by
David Lapham

In the Luncheonette

         For several years Quinn had been having conversations with this man, whose name he did not know. Once when they had been in the luncheonette they had talked about baseball, and now, each time Quinn came in, they continued to talk about it. In the winter the talk was of trades, predictions, memories. During the season it was always the most recent game. They were both Mets fans and the hopelessness of that passion had created a bond between them.

New York Trilogy
Paul Auster
1987

life magazine image 
reblogged
from Oddjacket