I'd Rather Have the Blues

                                    The street looks very frightening
                                    The rain begins and then comes lightning  
                                    It seems love's gone to pot
                                    I'd rather have the blues than what i've got

                                    The wind is blowing colder
                                    It looks like love is stale and older
                                    My luck don't look so hot
                                    I'd rather have the blues than what i've got

I'd Rather Have the Blues
(De Vol)
Nat King Cole
1955

image
Pittsburgh 1946
reblogged from Ticketthatexploded

More On Set

Force of Evil

On Dangerous Ground

Un Flic

Drive

The Trial

French Connection

Reservoir Dogs

The Informer

Inside Man

Thirty-Nine Steps

Naked City  ( Kubrick as stills photographer)

Pulp Fiction

Yojimbo

1000 Ways to Die

                                             He looked at her
                                             Something
                                             Turned cancerous
                                             He was in love

1000 Ways to Die
Henry Rollins
1989

New York Blues

         It's an around-the-clock town, but this is the stretch ; from now until the garbage-grinding trucks rip the dawn to shreds, it gets as quiet as it's ever going to get. This is the deep of the night, the dregs, the sediment at the bottom of the coffee cup. The blue hours, when a guy's nerves get tauter and women's fears get greater.
......While the city sleeps, and the streets are clear, there's a life that's happening here.

Cornell Woolrich
New York Blues
                 
illustration
Ed Vebell
reblogged from Funnster

Born Under a Bad Sign

The Grifters

Pickpocket

Small Back Room

Youth of the Beast

Lady from Shanghai

House of Bamboo

Streetcar Named Desire

Blast of  Silence

The Outfit

Gun Crazy

Blood Simple

The Killing

Le Cercle Rouge

High Priest of the Godless

                  An excellent article by Craig Clevenger posted on litreactor.com describes the influence Thompson exerts on the whole genre of Hardboiled fiction.

www.litreactor.com/columns/high-priest-of-the-godless-a-jim-thompson-primer

Darkness to Light

                         Some great descriptions of the themes at the core of Noir, perhaps Ellroy's opening one being the best.

Warner Home Video
55 min Documentary

Small Details

                 The more unstable life is the less one likes the small details to alter.

Graham Greene
The Comedians
1966

illustration
Sean Phillips

Warm Beer and Cold Women

      Warm beer and cold women, i just don't fit in
      Every joint i stumbled into tonight
      That's how it's been
      All these double knit strangers with
      Gin and Vermouth and recycled stories
      In the Naugahyde booths

      Now the moon's rising
      Ain't got no time to lose
      Time to get down to drinking
      Tell the band to play the blues
      Drinks are on me, i'll buy another round
      At the last ditch attempt saloon

Warm Beer and Cold Women
(Waits)
Tom Waits

image 
Chaloner Woods 1930
re-blogged from mezzaluna

Always Looking Away

          I am always looking away, or again at something after it has given me up.

Frank O'Hara
Meditations in an Emergency
1957

image
Kim Basinger
LA Confidential 1997
reblogged from Moviesinframes

Beauty of the Shadows

Neal Boenzi

Horace Bristol

Lou Stouman

Ruth Orkin

Walfred Moisio

Unknown

Stanko Abadzic

Aaron Siskind

Edward Chambre Hardman

Kenneth Josephson

Lotte Laska

images reblogged
from Visions

Walked Into Hell

              But she had walked into hell ; the hell of frustration. The kind of frustration that drove you insane. You knew what you wanted, you had it right with you, but it was rotten in the middle. It was no good. It was desire and excitement and sweet agony and it was always frustrated.

Fires that Destroy
Harry Whittington
1951

image
Roger Wilkerson.tumblr

Excerpt reblogged from
Lost Classics of Noir -
Criminal Element.com

Sympathy for the Devil #2

Kiss Me Deadly

Born to Kill

Big Combo

Ace in the Hole

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Naked Kiss

Night of the Hunter

Ashes and Diamonds