FilmSkool — a free film school
Devil in a Blue Dress
In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet, who he suspects is hiding out in one of the city's black jazz clubs. Strapped for money and facing house payments, Easy takes the job, but soon finds himself in over his head.
1995 · Directed by Carl Franklin · 102 min · Thriller · Crime · Drama · Mystery · Screenplay in the scene database · 7 frames
Tagline
Private detective Easy Rawlins has been caught on the wrong side of the most dangerous secret in town.
Plot
In the Summer of 1948 in Los Angeles, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins is laid off from his job at Champion Aircraft and needs money to pay his mortgage. Easy's bartender friend Joppy introduces him to DeWitt Albright, a white private investigator looking for a missing white woman, Daphne Monet. Before meeting, Easy feels a little nervous meeting DeWitt, as it reminds him of someone from his past back in Houston, Mouse, a man who got him to go along with a murder, which Easy denies he was a part of, and car theft. Explaining that Monet's disappearance led her wealthy fiancé, Todd Carter, to drop out of the Los Angeles mayoral race, Albright pays Easy to find Daphne, who is known to frequent the juke joints along Central Avenue.
Easy begins his search at an illegal club where he sees the bouncer, Junior Fornay, eject a white man. Learning that his friend Dupree Brouchard's girlfriend, Coretta James, is a confidant of Daphne, Easy spends the night with Coretta, who tells him Daphne is staying with gangster Frank Green. Albright arranges a meeting at the Malibu pier, where Easy is accosted by racist white youths before Albright humiliates one of the boys at gunpoint and drives off the others. Easy tells Albright about Green and is given another payment to continue the search.
Returning home, Easy is arrested by LAPD homicide detectives, who reveal that Coretta has been murdered. Interrogated and beaten before being released, he is approached by Matthew Terell, the remaining mayoral candidate. Terell is with a young boy, supposedly his adopted son, and inquires about Daphne, but Easy divulges nothing. After a nightmare about Coretta, he receives a call from Daphne herself. They meet at the Ambassador Hotel; Daphne says Coretta called her before she died and confirms she is close with Frank Green. Daphne then asks Easy to drive her to meet Richard McGee (the white man ejected from the club), who delivered a letter of hers to the wrong place. They arrive to find McGee dead and his house ransacked. Easy notices a pack of Mexican cigarettes, the same brand smoked by Junior. Traumatized by the grisly scene, Daphne panics and flees in McGee's car.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Carl Franklin
- Cinematography: Tak Fujimoto
- Edited by: Carole Kravetz Aykanian
- Music: Elmer Bernstein
- Production design: Gary Frutkoff
- Produced by: Gary Goetzman, Jesse Beaton
Cast
- Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins
- Tom Sizemore as DeWitt Albright
- Jennifer Beals as Daphne Monet
- Don Cheadle as Mouse Alexander
- Maury Chaykin as Matthew Terell
- Terry Kinney as Todd Carter
- Mel Winkler as Joppy
- Albert Hall as Degan Odell
- Lisa Nicole Carson as Coretta James
- Jernard Burks as Dupree Brouchard
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Mundy Lane Entertainment, TriStar Pictures, Clinica Estetico
- Budget: $27,000,000
- Box office: $16,140,822
- Themes: based on novel or book, war veteran, jazz club, murder, los angeles, california, biting, private detective, missing person, framed for a crime, aggressive
More by Carl Franklin
On this film
This is the plain index, shown because JavaScript is off. Every lesson here is a free video published by the channel credited on it and plays through that channel's own embed — FilmSkool hosts nothing.