Author Walter Mosley has written 14 novels featuring private detective Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, but only one of them has ever made it to the screen. Even though I didn’t watch the 1995 Mosley adaptation “Devil in a Blue Dress” for the first time until decades after it was initially released in theaters, my immediate reaction was major disappointment that the movie starring Denzel Washington didn’t kick off an entire Easy Rawlins franchise.
Because it wasn’t a box office success, writer-director Carl Franklin’s film never got the follow-up it deserved, but it stands now as a classic piece of hard-boiled noir, expertly mixing complex social commentary into the style of its vintage 1940s counterparts.
