Erotomania

From the 2003 French movie He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, starring Audrey Tautou, and Sam Le Bihan. It would be the former rather than the latter pictured above.
Audrey Tautou plays a promising art student in love with a married doctor. Unfortunately for the artist, the doctor is unwilling to leave his pregnant wife. The movie begins with the girl's face among the red roses of a flower shop where she purchases a single rose for her love. This cute little stick-of-a-girl finds disappointment in all of her attempts to become the sole owner of the doctor's heart. When the burden of this heaping pile of unfulfilled expectations drags her to the brink of ending her relationship with the doctor (and everyone else), she has a full conversion to the dark side; her efforts to obtain her desire intensify to full Mumm Ra mode. The film goes full noir from that moment. Neither her life, nor the doctor's life will ever be the same again.

To borrow from the lyrics of Red Rider's "Lunatic Fringe" (how's that for a segue?), I was "out upon the water"...except I just discovered that those are not the lyrics; that's just what I thought that I had been hearing all these years. Turns out the actual lyrics are "out along the walkway" which isn't nearly as interesting, nor at all a propos to a discussion of my fishing trip with El Supremo and The Musketeer. I only bring that up because of an exchange wherein El Supremo mentioned something about how quiet the environment was. The Musketeer agreed. Naturally, this reminded me of a gunman and sometime-sheriff. I mentioned that to my companions who appeared entirely lost by the reference. But of course they had not heard of that lesser known individual with the famous brothers...Quiet Earp, about whom the historical record is largely silent because of his calm and tranquil nature.

More importantly, another break-through on the noir novel. The death of an important character has left a void which requires filling. One character's entrance had already been planned, but another important character would benefit the story...and the more I thought about it, the more essential the character became. So now I have key players in place for the protagonist to interact with when he takes his investigation into the dangerous gambling den.