No One Can Cross

Paul Auster
New York Trilogy
1985

Eric Drigny

The Sinner Can Be Washed

There's a place I know where the train goes slow

Where the sinner can be washed in the blood of the lamb

There's a river by the trestle down by sinner's grove

Down where the willow and the dogwood grow

Down by the Train
(Tom Waits)
Johnny Cash

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Eleanor Barreau

City on the Make

                Chicago lives like a drunken El-rider who cannot remember where he got on or at what station he wants to get off. The sound of wheels moving below satisfies him that he is making progress.

Nelson Algren
Chicago - City on the Make
1951

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Art Shay
Algren at poker

Between One and Another

            Boxing's essential situation - the violent encounter between one and another - is both a stylized distillation of the state of conflict and the enactment of a genuine possibility that we the spectators could encounter, one that inspires both fear and exhilaration.

Jacob Mazer
from
Everybody's a Sucker for Something
Badlefthook.com
Jan 2015

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The Set Up
1949

Harold Cazneaux

Wherever I Turn

Wherever I turn the black wave rushes down on me.

Franz Kafka

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The Godfather
1972

Trapped within the Glass

           These four human beings drawn together by happenstance, seem trapped within the glass walls, specimens for our imaginations. The couple in the background hunch over the cherry wood counter, their faces tired and gaunt. The woman examines her nails, seemingly oblivious to the man sitting next to her.

from
J.M Pressley
essay on Nighthawks

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sketch for Nighthawks 1942 
Edward Hopper

Don't Go to Strangers

Don't Go to Strangers
(Evans/Kent/Mann)
Etta Jones - 1960

Explanation for Everything

There's an innocuous explanation for everything. Everything is a coin that has two sides to it, and one side is innocuous, but the other can be ominous.

Cornell Woolrich

New York Blues -

circa 1950s

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unknown
1950 Pontiac

Tim Ronca

Sweet Smell of Success

Sweet Smell of Success

Alexander Mackendrick

1957

images reblogged via

Beautifulstillsfrombeautifulfilms

Trapped for a Fool

          Was he ever going to learn ?  Ever be wise and smart and sober enough one night or one day to see that he had something put by for tomorrow ?  Did he always have to drink it all up ?  Was he going to keep on for ever and ever being trapped for a fool, by no one but himself ?

Charles Jackson
Lost Weekend
1944

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Nyneon.blogspot.com

Simpson Kalisher

Still Got a Soul

If you're losin' your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.

Charles Bukowski

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unknown

Pervading, Brooding

Dark, deep, beautiful, aglow ........

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

       Laughton's direction has Germanic overtones, not only in the expressionism that occasionally grips the image but also in a pervading, brooding romanticism ........ But ultimately the source of it's style and power is mysterious - it is a film without precedent and without any real equals.

Dave Kehr

Chicago Reader

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Night of the Hunter

1955