Film Noir from Royal Books, Inc.

Garden City: Doubleday, 1961. First Edition. First Edition. Basis for the 1962 film noir "Experiment in Terror," adapted by the Gordons from their novel, directed by Blake Edwards, and starring Glenn Ford and Lee Remick. Rare in dust jacket. Fine in a Near Fine, price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket is exceptionally fresh, with just a touch of rubbing… Read more

Hollywood: Paramount Pictures, 1951. Post-production Release Dialogue script for the 1951 film. Billy Wilder's masterpiece, a daylight noir, unapologetically cynical, threaded with a scathing commentary on the brutality of media madness that is every bit as relevant today as it was in 1950, or a hundred years before that. Nominated for one Academy Award. White… Read more

Beverly Hills, CA: Columbia Pictures / Santana Pictures, 1950. Third Estimating Draft for the 1951 film noir. Copy belonging to uncredited crew member Freddie Ford, with his name and contact information in holograph ink annotation to the front wrapper. Based on Joseph Kessel's 1936 novel "Coup de Grace." A cold-blooded American expatriate is drawn into the criminal… Read more

N.p.: N.p., 1945. Shooting Final Draft script for the 1946 film, in maroon leather presentation binding belonging to William Bendix, with his name in gilt on front board, and title in gilt on spine. William Bendix was an American stage, film, radio, and television actor whose is best remembered as one of television's archetypal patriachs, the blundering… Read more

Paris: Adel Productions, 1969. Draft script for the 1970 French film noir, here under the working title "Marseille 1930." Text in French. Annotation on front wrapper of release title, written large and boldly in cursive holograph pencil, with working title on title page. Erased annotations in holograph pencil still visible on upper left of title page of names… Read more

New York: Harper, 1955. First Edition. First Edition. INSCRIBED by the author on the front endpaper: "To Ted and Ruth Harris / with sincerest best wishes / Bill Heath." The first signed copy of this seminal film noir source we have offered. Basis for the 1955 color film noir directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Victor Mature and… Read more

New York: Rinehart, 1954. First American Edition, and first in English, preceded by the French edition published in 1952 by Editions Denoel. Basis for the classic 1955 French film noir "Diabolique," directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot and starring Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, and Paul Meurisse. Very Good plus, with a slight lean, in a Good dust… Read more

New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1935. First American Edition, preceded by the UK edition published by William Heinemann the previous year. Basis for the 1947 film noir, directed by Gregory Ratoff, and starring Peggy Cummins, Victor Mature, Ethel Barrymore, and Vincent Price. Very Good plus in a Very Good dust jacket. Vintage bookseller… Read more

Hollywood: Paramount Pictures, 1958. Vintage studio still photograph from the 1958 film noir, showing actor James Stewart looking with confusion between a blonde and a brunette Kim Novak. With a mimeo snipe on the verso. Based on Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's 1954 novel "From Among the Dead." Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, following a troubled former police detective hired… Read more

Beverly Hills, CA: United Artists, 1955. Vintage matte-finish reference photograph of Otto Preminger on the set of the 1955 film. Based on the 1949 novel by Nelson Algren, about a strung-out jazz drummer in Chicago trying to make it, caught between the wife who tries to manipulate him into staying with her and the hostess at a… Read more

Garden City: Doubleday, Doran, 1936. First American Edition, preceding the British by one month. From the library of Otto Penzler. Basis for the classic 1942 film noir, directed by Frank Tuttle, starring Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, and Robert Preston. Fine in a bright, Near Fine dust jacket. Tiny stamped letter "D" on the front pastedown. Jacket is… Read more

N.p.: N.p., 1972. Original photograph of actors Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart on the set of the landmark 1946 film noir. Struck from the original negative circa 1972. With Bogart sporting his customary fedora and Bacall in her iconic fur coat, with a hair net to preserve her style between takes. Based on Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel,… Read more

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1950. Vintage oversize reference photograph from the 1950 film, showing actor Richard Widmark attentively watching a wrestling match. With the stamp of Twentieth Century-Fox on the verso. Loosely based on Gerald Kersh's 1938 crime novel, which follows the failures and infrequent successes of a second-rate con artist attempting to become a wrestling promoter.… Read more

N.p.: N.p., 1947. Collection of three vintage slightly oversize borderless double weight photographs from the 1947 film, taken during production in Acapulco, Mexico, two showing a large parrot perched on the camera, and one showing several unknown gaffers standing near large floodlights used during filming. With a printed mimeo snipe affixed to the verso, along with a PIX stamp… Read more

N.p.: N.p., 1958. Collection of four vintage matte-finish borderless candid photographs of Jeanne Moreau on the set of the 1958 French film noir. The film's new cinematic realism was both indebted and pivotal to the French New Wave, and skyrocketed the career of actress Jeanne Moreau, whose disaffected, makeup-less performance was the scandal of Paris for months following… Read more

N.p.: N.p., 1954. Vintage borderless reference photograph from the 1954 film, showing actors Mary Murphy, Bruno VeSota, Will Wright, and others looking on as Robert Keith and Robert Osterloh restrain a wounded Marlon Brando. Based on Frank Rooney's 1951 short story "The Cyclists' Raid." Two rival motorcycle gangs raise hell in a small town, disrupting local racing… Read more

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1941. Vintage US one sheet poster for the 1941 film noir, here under the alternate title "Hot Spot," also used for the original release. Based on the 1941 novel by Steve Fisher, about a man seeking to prove he's innocent of a murder while being railroaded by an obsessed detective. Set and… Read more

New York: Random House, 1954. First Edition. First Edition. Basis for the 1957 film noir, the only film in the cycle to be shot on location in Cuba, directed by Richard Wilson, written for the screen by Jo Eisinger, and starring Errol Flynn. Very Good plus in a Good dust jacket. Boards lightly bumped to the top… Read more

N.p.: N.p., 1965. Vintage oversize borderless double weight reference photograph of Jean-Paul Belmondo from the set of the 1965 film. "14 Mai 1965" stamp and annotation in holograph marker of "credit Y-Debraine" on verso. Based on the 1962 novel "Obession" by Lionel White, about an unhappily married man who goes on a traveling crime spree with an… Read more

N.p.: N.p., 1964. Vintage reference photograph from the 1964 film, showing actress Constance Towers consulting a newspaper with a salacious headline. Director Samuel Fuller's bizarre, outrageous, and perverse pulp masterwork. Kelly (Constance Towers), a former call girl who tries to make good in a new town nursing handicapped children, falls in love with the saintly businessman J.L. Grant… Read more