It's a Bitter Little World: The Smartest, Toughest, Nastiest Quotes From Film Noir

By Charles Pappas

Book Overview

Learn Life's Hard Lessons from Film Noir &break;&break;If you want to know the meaning of life, don't study Shakespeare, don't peruse Plato. Everything you need to know in life you can learn from film... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582973873
• ISBN13: 9781582973876
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Writers Digest Books
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.0" x 0.5" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Essential Noir

Compiles many of the best hard boiled lines from the Film Noir genre. Back before clever and smart observations were replaced by one liner zingers. Before smart writing was replaced by special effects. This is a bitter little review.

Sizzling!

This book is endlessly entertaining. I've read it several times already and plan to read it several times more. It doesn't get better than this.

Nothing beats dark and mysterious film and pulp noir!!!

I must admit I fell in love with "It's a Bitter Little World", it's a good little reference book for some of the best late forties and fifties noir movie punch lines. Last Saturday afternoon I saw "Kiss Me Deadly" on TCM for the first time but I'm going to make it a point to see all my old favorites like "Somewhere in the Night" though not mentioned by Mr. Pappas, and "Nocturne", "High Sierra" and other Bogey noir favorites, also "Chinatown", "Farewell My Lovely" "Blade Runner" as well as some I haven't yet seen. Long live noir!

A Piece of History

Every once in a while, and it's not often, you run across a book whose contents seem ready to bust its covers. ITS A BITTER LITTLE WORLD is one of those beauties. Charles Pappas has created a multi-media experience in book form. Not only do you get the best film-noir quotations ever uttered by the most desperate guys and dolls, but you get them surrounded by graphics and design that pull you right into the shadows. Visually, it's a striking book. And, as if that wasn't enough, you get a healthy dose of Mr. Pappas' own observations, written in a style that has all the bite and brains of the genre he obviously loves so well. ITS A BITTER LITTLE WORLD is a labor of love, and it pulls no punches. I can't imagine a worthier tribute to the film-noir genre, and I can't imagine anyone pulling it off half as well as Mr. Pappas. Film-noir has given us the greatest dialogue in the history of cinema, and ITS A BITTER LITTLE WORLD is a feast of imagery and phrases whose like we won't see again. This is a book for every library.

A fun, revealing compilation lending to leisure browsing by any who love film noir and literature

Charles Pappas' It's A Bitter Little World: The Smartest Toughest Nastiest Quotes From Film Noir represents the author's sixty years of film noir surveys to locate quotes and dialogue which pertain to life's challenges and answers. Arranged by decade, these are scalding quotes and even fun, memorable lines and dialogue bits which reflect a love of language and an eye to fun. It's A Bitter Little World is a fun, revealing compilation lending to leisure browsing by any who love film noir and literature.