If you use it [heroin] for any length of time your teeth just go to hell. And that’s the good part. Inherent Vice 2014 starring Joaquin Phoenix & John Brolin & Owen Wlson & Katherine Waterston & Reese Witherspoon & Benicio de Toro & Jena Malone & Joanna Newsom & Jordan Christian Heard & Jong Chau & Jeannie Berlin & Maya Rudolph et al, director Paul Thomas Anderson
Drop me off at the first bus stop. Kiss Me Deadly 1955 starring Ralph Meeker & Maxine Cooper & Albert Dekker & Paul Stewart & Juano Hernandez & Wesley Addy & Cloris Leachman & Gaby Rodgers et al, director Robert Aldrich, her to him
Get me to that bus stop and forget you ever saw me. ibid.
Too many people like you have contempt for anything that has to do with the law. ibid. Pat to Mike
But if she didn’t make it, she said, Remember me. ibid. Mike
Dames are worse than flies. ibid. hood
Jack Nicholson: You’re better off not knowing.
Mrs Mulwray: I want to know. Chinatown 1974 starring Faye Dunaway & Jack Nicholson & John Huston & Perry Lopez & Roman Polanski & John Hillerman & Darrell Zwerling & Diane Ladd & Roy Jenson & Richard Bakalyan et al, director Roman Polanski
I don’t kick people out of their houses like you people at the bank do. ibid. detective to bankster in barber’s chairs
I do matrimonial work. It is my métier. ibid. him to her
The people who are behind my husband’s death – why are they going to so much trouble? ibid. her to him
My name is George Gideon. Gideon of Scotland Yard 1958 starring Jack Hawkins & Anna Massey & Dianne Foster & Cyril Cusack & Andrew Ray & James Hayter & Ronald Howard & Laurence Naismith & Howard Marion-Crawford et al, director John Ford, opening line
Tales of crime grab your attention like little else. The people who inhabit the criminal underworld have always made fascinating literary characters. Classic Literature & Cinema III: Crime, Sky 2020
One of the earliest pieces of crime fiction is from the 1,001 Nights, the collection of folk tales from the Middle East. ibid.
Edgar Allan Poe: The Murders in the Rue Morgue. ibid.
Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone, which deals with the unexplained theft of a diamond. ibid.
It would be a doctor named Arthur Conan Doyle who created the greatest detective of all time with Sherlock Holmes. ibid.
In 1929 Agatha Christie introduced another of the great literary detectives – Hercule Poirot. ibid.
Little Caesar (1931) … Scarface (1932) … High Sierra (1941) … Maigret Sets a Trap (1958) … Double Indemnity (1944) … The Big Sleep (1946) … Brighton Rock (1948) … The Third Man (1949) … Strangers on a Train (1951) … The Godfather (1972) … The Firm (1993) … ibid.
Maigret would go on to feature in an astonishing 84 novels. ibid.
In 1953 the movie Big Jim McLean was a combination of conspiracy theme and detective story. Alan Hart, Media Morphs: Conspiracy I, producer Hossein Setareh, Edge Media 2012
The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic. G K Chesterton, The Blue Cross: A Father Brown Mystery
There was no more quintessentially English writer than Agatha Christie. Through her sensational murder mysteries she created a literary universe that captured our national spirit like no-one before or since. The magical worlds where she set her stories are in fact drawn from real places. Agatha Christie’s England, Channel 5 2021
Born 1890 in the Devon town of Torquay. The youngest to three children she lived a charmed life thanks to her American father’s large inheritance. ibid.
She introduced the world to Miss Marple when she published The Murder at the Vicarage. ibid.
In 1920 Agatha published her debut novel: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The lead character was the now iconic Belgium detective Hercules Poirot. ibid.
Possessing and threatening the people she knows and loves. For the terrified young Agatha, evil is an ever-lurking presence waiting to be unveilled. Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen I, BBC 2022
A Pioneering radical writer and woman. ibid.
She was the quintessential English woman. ibid. historian
She taught herself aged 5 … Social status fragile.
It gave her the material to start writing seriously. In between her social engagements in Cairo, Agatha found the time to write her first full-length novel, Snow Upon the Desert. ibid.
This was the room in which Agatha first set eyes on Archibald Chrisie. ibid.
Also about the deadly simplicity of poisons ibid.
First up, Style Court, a country house. ibid.
For Agatha this ex-pat society was fascinating. ibid. II
Operation Husband continued … Agatha threw herself into the war effort … How did it affect her dreams of becoming a writer? ibid.
Agatha’s opinion of the doctors was gradually sinking. ibid.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles: filled with insights and characters she’d stored up over the years. ibid.
The men at Style are a pretty useless lot … The women of Styles are a much more effective lot. ibid.
Agatha turned out four novels in four years. ibid.
A gossip colomnist reported she had had a nervous breakdown. ibid.
December 1926, Agatha Christie has crashed her car … Then she vanishes. ibid.
‘Agatha absolutely abhorred the loss of empire, the changing attitudes to British dominance over the world. This big change in social values, the class system.’ ibid. J C Bernthal, Agatha Christie scholar
Arguably the biggest writer of the twentieth century. ibid.
I think there’s much more to this enigmatic and elusive novelist than meets the eye. Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen II
The famous detective novelist vanished, maybe even murdered or kidnapped … The perfect tabloid story. ibid.
What made this woman the best selling novelist in the world? Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen III
These Westmacott books really are her most personal her most intense work. ibid.
It’s 1893 and Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, has a problem. He’s come to hate the fictional detective that’s brought him fame and fortune. Killing Sherlock : Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle I: Doctor & Detective, BBC 2023
He originally appeared in four novels and fifty-six stories. ibid.
What I loved about him was his compelling weirdness and the strange cases he took on. ibid.
Arthur Conan Doyle was in many ways a vision of middle-class propriety. ibid.
Sherlock Holmes is the world’s most famous detective. Admired for his intellect, adored for his skills of deduction. Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle II: Fact & Fiction
At the time the people in power loved Arthur for making Britain the hero. ibid.
He felt the temptation to turn detective himself. ibid.
He characterises people negatively and unfairly on the basis of race. ibid.
Arthur has enlisted the help of a medium. Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle III: Shadows & Sleuths
Arthur Conan Doyle, scientifically trained doctor, creator of the super-rational Sherlock Holmes, had become a person who believed in the paranormal. ibid.