Dark Passages

April 2011

Dark Passages

The 10 best lines in film noir
compiled by Otto Penzler / photograph by Eric Ogden

In the world of mystery fiction, there is one name that surfaces over and over: Otto Penzler. He is first and foremost a scholar in the genre, having penned columns and edited anthologies, including Best American Noir of the Century and The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories. The owner of Manhattan’s Mysterious Bookshop, he has his own imprint with Grove/Atlantic, Otto Penzler Books. He is a friend and confidant of mystery writers everywhere and a font of information for the fans who read them. So for this countdown, if Penzler says these are the 10 best lines in film noir, they are...