Devil in a Blue Dress

Directed by

CARL FRANKLIN

Starring DENZEL WASHINGTON TOM SIZEMORE JENNIFER BEALS

1995

Released 14 DECEMBER

Blu-ray

he films that made up the noir genre, whose template was forged, adapted from the 1990 novel by Walter Mosley, recalibrates this archetypal detective character by making him Black, and switches out a sense of nagging curiosity with a desperate fight for survival. Denzel Washington plays Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, a laid-off construction worker who desperately needs income to pay his mortgage – he is something of an outlier in LA in that he owns his own property. His futile search for employment leads him to a late night encounter with Tom Sizemore’s apparently affable fixer Dewitt Albright, who virtually insists that Easy search for a missing, blue dress-wearing harlot named Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals), whose absence is causing ructions in an upcoming mayoral challenge.