But even when he does everything “right” according to the rules imposed upon him by his world, he can’t avoid violence. In a kind of sequel to his tense exchange with his white boss, Easy tries to steer out of a conversation with a young white woman on a Malibu pier, an exchange he didn’t start and is eager to end even before the drunken louts accompanying harass him for talking to a white woman. Hanging out in a jazz club, he’s relaxed and sociable, a contrast to the tightly coiled Easy seen in neighborhoods that aren’t his own. Washington plays Easy as a man whose ability to code switch has helped keep him alive. social sphere (which requires him to sneak into a “whites only” hotel after dark) to the lower reaches, where he’s more welcome but no less imperiled. Easy’s journey takes him from the top of the L.A. Then he lets his frustration boil over.Īnd, as with the best noirs, the plot invites the detective and viewer both to tour the complex dangers, pleasures, and truths of an unjust society. Speaking to the white boss who’s letting him go, Easy’s mindful of the power dynamic and he’s deferential without losing his dignity - but only up to the point where there’s nothing to be gained by deference. Denzel Washington stars as Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, an airplane mechanic trying to make a living in post-war Los Angeles who loses his job in an early scene that tells us a lot about our hero without spelling it out. It’s both a compensation and a source of frustration that Devil in a Blue Dress is as good as it is.

Recently re-released on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD as part of the Criterion Collection, the film should have kicked off a long series of stylish noirs that doubled as a cultural history of a changing Los Angeles told from the perspective of a Black hero who keeps bumping against an invisible but fortified racial divide. But there’s no greater what-could-have-been among would-be franchise starters than Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dress. You can watch this space for an inevitable appreciation of The Rocketeer one of these days. But while the world of film isn’t really poorer for the loss of, say The Phantom 2, not every dead end is deserved. They were meant to spawn sequel after profitable sequel. The Shadow, Judge Dredd, Wild Wild West : none of these were meant to be one-and-done movies. The ’90s are littered with potential film series that couldn’t go the distance.

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley