Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Carl Franklin

Writers (WGA):

Walter Mosley (book)
Carl Franklin (screenplay)

Release Date:

29 September 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Private detective Easy Rawlins has been caught on the wrong side of the most dangerous secret in town.

Plot:

An Afro-American private detective is hired to find a woman and gets mixed up in a murderous political scandal.

Plot Keywords:

African American | Detective | Jazz Club | Murder | Dress

Awards:

3 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Denzel Washington	...	Ezekiel 'Easy' Rawlins
Tom Sizemore	...	DeWitt Albright
Jennifer Beals	...	Daphne Monet
Don Cheadle	...	Mouse Alexander
Maury Chaykin	...	Matthew Terell
Terry Kinney	...	Todd Carter
Mel Winkler	...	Joppy
Albert Hall	...	Degan Odell
Lisa Nicole Carson	...	Coretta James
Jernard Burks	...	Dupree Brouchard
David Wolos-Fonteno	...	Junior Fornay
John Roselius	...	Detective Mason
Beau Starr	...	Detective Jack Miller
Steven Randazzo	...	Benny Giacomo
Scott Lincoln	...	Richard McGee

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, sexuality and language.

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR | SDDS (8 channels)

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #33509) | Iceland:14 | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Canada:14A | Denmark:16 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Peru:14 | Portugal:M/12 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Ambassador Hotel - 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Clinica Estetico

Trivia:

Based on the book of the same name by Walter Mosley. Mosley wrote several Easy Rawlins books. All but two - "Gone Fishin'" and "Six Easy Pieces" - include a color in the title of the book.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The scene after Easy and Daphne are in McGee's house (where they find his body), Easy pulls into his driveway and gets out of the car. He looks left to see a gray convertible on the street. When he comes to his front door, the view changes and you see the same car with a (hard) top, over Easy's left shoulder. After the people in the house leave, the car is once again a convertible. Clearly they used two identical cars in this scene. One convertible, one not.

Quotes:

Mouse: You said don't shoot him, right? Well I didn't; I choked... If you didn't want me to kill him, why did you leave me alone with him?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Century of Black Cinema (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

I CAN'T GO ON WITHOUT YOU

A Different Shade Of Film Noir

This is the kind of film that can stay with you for awhile after you watch it: a haunting kind of film that isn't always pleasant or easy to understand but you remember it. It also helps to have a fondness for the 1940 film noir movies.

It doesn't help that it appears racist in nature with people of one color all being the bad guys while people with another color all the good guys. I won't say which is which, but if the colors were reversed, there would have been an outcry about the obvious bias here by screenwriter-director Carl Franklin. Despite this, it's still a fascinating movie that just oozes with the 1940s atmosphere. Great narration in there, a la film noir, great automobiles and great sets. It puts you right into the late 40s in Los Angeles, a little bit like the film Chinatown.

Denzel Washington does a nice job with the narration and the lead role, the character of "Easy Rawlins," off the book by Walter Moseley (which I read and recommend). Tom Sizemore and Don Cheadle play very intense characters in supporting roles, particularly Cheadle as the trigger-happy "Mouse." Jennifer Beals is alluring as the mysterious "Daphne Monet."

The film is a bit confusing in parts and was especially so for me since the book was not exactly the same and had a totally different ending. Nonetheless, the film has always fascinated me and drawn me back for multiple viewings. It's good storytelling and it would be fun to see more of Moseley's books translated to the big screen.