Devil in a Blue Dress | Blu-ray Review

Director Carl Franklin followed the success of 1992’s break-out thriller One False Move with his most notable work to date, Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), a Los Angeles neo noir recuperating post-war racial tensions within the confines of the divisive city, filtered through a glop of familiar genre motifs and superb command of tone and mood. Starring Denzel Washington and based on a novel by Walter Mosley, the box office failings of the film curbed additional adaptations of the author’s work featuring reluctant private eye Easy Rawlins. Twenty years after its premiere, the film has maintained an unprecedented level of critical acclaim assisting its sterling reputation. As far as noir goes, we’ve seen this sort of narrative before, a beautiful woman with particularly damning information and labyrinthine connections involved in a dangerous mixture of sex and politics, but never from the perspective of a black private eye in a viciously segregated America.

In 1948 Los Angeles, aircraft factory worker Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins finds himself unfairly laid off and in need of work to maintain paying his mortgage. A white man mysteriously appears at his doorstep, DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore), offering to pay Easy one hundred dollars to find Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals), white woman who’s hiding out in the black establishments of Central Avenue. In need of the cash, Rawlins agrees, but suddenly finds himself implicated in murder after a rendezvous with a friend of Daphne’s (Lisa Nicole Carson), who ends up dead only hours after a titillating meet and greet.

While audiences didn’t embrace Devil in a Blue Dress upon release, it’s certainly one of Washington’s most compelling performances, standing out in a decade where the actor portrayed Malcolm X (1992), co-starred in one of the most notable mainstream AIDS related films of the era in Philadelphia (1993), and played romantic lead alongside Whitney Houston in The Preacher’s Wife (1996).

As box office numbers continue to be used in conversations related to the casting of black male leads thanks to 2014’s leaked Sony emails discussing thoughts and concerns on Washington headlining The Equalizer, the actor continues to be on the forefront of changing these rigid perceptions. As such, there’s something still excitingly experimental about Devil in a Blue Dress because Franklin’s film manages to play with our expectations, aided by a significant dose of problematic realities involving race relations.

We know before Tom Sizemore even utters his first line he’s a man Rawlins should run as far away from as he can, but economic necessity dictates otherwise. And so we descend into a particular time and place, transported to the periphery of the juke joints on Los Angeles’ Central Avenue, where a white woman named Daphne Monet is running away from something. Evocative of Chinatown, a little bit of Laura, with a mad dash of titular reference to Von Sternberg’s The Devil is a Woman thanks to Mosley’s use of the 1960s Shorty Long song, these players and their motivations may be familiar, but the stakes are a bit different here.

Elmer Bernstein’s moody score assists, while Tak Fujimoto’s (of Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, who serves as executive producer here) cinematography lurks throughout the seedy shadows of Rawlin’s night time trawling, juxtaposed effectively with the sunny incandescence of his neighborhood.

Jennifer Beals is interesting casting as the object of pursuit. Those without an idea of the film’s secrets perhaps find her a curious actress to fulfill white woman duties considering her complexion. Her presence further challenges our conditioned notions of race and/or ethnic stereotyping as a definitive indicator as well as what constitutes a notion of ‘whiteness.’ But while Beals remains the enigmatic figure at the center of the narrative, the film’s other major player is Don Cheadle as Washington’s hyper aggressive sidekick, one of the actor’s first breakout roles after a decade of supporting roles and television appearances.

Franklin would only direct four more features following Devil (though a rumored project on Tupac might prove a lucrative venture), including the 1998 Meryl Streep cancer vehicle One True Thing and a reunion with Washington on 2003’s Out of Time. The final moments of Devil in a Blue Dress, conveying a hopeful sense of a community coming together and existing comfortably despite great odds, plays like a sweet dream of the way things could have been had they continued in a hopeful direction.

Disc Review:

Twilight Time presents this limited edition in 1.85:1, and it’s a great high definition transfer of the vintage title. As usual per the distributor, only three thousand copies were printed an isolated score track is included, while Carl Franklin is on hand for optional audio commentary. Don Cheadle’s original screen test is included as well (for a role David Alan Grier was also considered).

Final Thoughts:

A particularly successful homage to noir, Devil in a Blue Dress is a beautiful exploration of tone and motif even as its narrative movements languish in familiarity.

Film Review: ★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc review: ★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆