Hard-Boiled: Great Lines From Classic Noir Films

The film was noir and the dialogue was black - blacker than a doll in mourning, blacker than Mildred Pierce's steaming hot java, blacker than the seam up the back of Marlene Dietrich's leg. In the cult, crime, and noir films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, everyone was supremely eloquent. Now you, too, can be infinitely clever with Great Lines from Classic Noir Films, a collection of over 300 lines from nearly 150 of the wickedest films, from Casablanca to Born to Kill and The Big Heat. Need something romantic to woo your gal? "If there's anything I don't like, it's a smart-cracking dame." (Jack Palance in Panic in the Streets.) Something to prove to the cops that you're not a thug? "Me? I didn't do nothin'. I didn't kill anyone. I just drove away with the body." (Zero Mostel in The Enforcer). The boss chewed you out? Try "I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my time, but you - you're twenty minutes." (Jan Sterling in The Big Carnival). How about something for that special moment? "I felt pretty good - like an amputated leg." (Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet). The most luridly fascinating characters say the most outrageous things - and now you can read them all in black and white. With full-color reproductions of publicity photos, promotional posters, and film stills, Hard-Boiled is a glamorous and handy round-up of the unrestrained words of the drifters and dreamers, lovers and killers whose lives are the stuff of film noir.