Film Screening: Devil in a Blue Dress

Walter Mosley’s first book introduced us to his original private eye, Easy Rawlins, who in the summer of 1948 is hired to track a mysterious damsel and a large amount of stolen cash through Los Angeles neighborhoods both seedy and opulent. The book was a hit and Carl Franklin’s neo-noir film adaptation of Devil in a Blue Dress (1995, rated R) was an even bigger hit, with Denzel Washington smoldering in the lead role, Don Cheadle as his sidekick Mouse, and Jennifer Beals as the sultry Daphne Monet. There’s lust, double-crossing and gunplay, but also a much-needed consideration of simmering race relations and complex identities in 1940s Los Angeles and since – a welcome perspective that hadn’t featured prominently in the mainstream American mystery novel tradition before. Some 60 books on, Mosley’s approach to crime fiction has become its own very enjoyable institution. Time travel back to 1948 (and 1995) to watch Easy tackle his first case.