Wednesday, July 8, 2020

FTM 546: DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS

Patrick and JB walk real cool and catch everyone's eye.



Download this episode here. (32.5 MB)

Listen to F This Movie! on Spotify and on Stitcher.

Also discussed this episode: Taza, Son of Cochise (1954), Hamilton (2020), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), Shirley (2020), Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020), Between the Lines (1977), Dressed to Kill (1980)

11 comments:

  1. Patrick, are you ready for Kissing Booth 2? i can't wait

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    1. Here for that, absolutely.

      *Looks up Kissing Booth 2*… 2 HOURS AND 10 MINUTES

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    2. I didn't look at the duration. Jeeeeeeeziiiis. How can this be so long

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  2. I'll vouch for the Easy Rawlins series. I do wish this movie was a hit and they could've kept going, but I can always just imagine Denzel when I read. He does live within us all.

    The series has it's ups and downs, but I do recommend it strongly, and thanks to you guys for talking about this movie.

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  3. Devil with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress,
    Devil with the blue dress on
    Devil with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress,
    Devil with the blue dress on

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  4. Good podcast. Regarding why this movie wasn’t really a box office hit in 1995, the podcast touched on a lot of valid points. However, I feel that one point that was missed has to do with where Denzel Washington’s career was in 1995. There’s a perception of Denzel Washington’s movie career that Denzel Washington has basically been “Denzel Washington”, ever since he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for “Glory” (1989), 31 years ago. That ever since then, it’s been sex symbol Denzel (“Den-zeeeeellllll!”), and “Malcolm X”/“Training Day”/”Man on Fire”/”Flight”/”Equalizer” Denzel, over 30 or so trademark Denzel star power movies, 28 of them surely directed by Tony Scott, Spike Lee, Antoine Fuqua, and himself. That’s not the case. Denzel Washington’s career had a major star power boosting transition during the period of 1999 through 2001, when he did “The Hurricane” (1999), “Remember the Titans” (2000), and “Training Day” (2001). But between “Glory” and “The Hurricane”, it was kind of difficult for Denzel Washington to make a solid imprint as a solo leading actor in hit movies. Many of his movies of this period fit a category in which he was equally billed with a white co-star of comparable or greater star stature at the time. These movies include “Heart Condition” (1990), “Philadelphia” (1993), “The Pelican Brief” (1993), “Crimson Tide” (1995), and “Courage Under Fire” (1996). A related category of movies followed, in which Denzel Washington was top-billed, but he still had major co-stars, though not all white by this time. These movies include “The Preacher’s Wife” (1996), “The Siege” (1998), and “The Bone Collector” (1999). There was an outlier during this period, “Much Ado About Nothing” (1993), in which Denzel Washington took a small supporting role, with the more prestigious status of “star cameo”. Of Denzel’s other movies during this period, which were Denzel Washington star vehicles, most were at least good, some were moderate hits, some had acclaimed or iconic Denzel Washington performances, and some didn’t make much of an impact. These would be “Mo’ Better Blues” (1990), “Mississippi Masala” (1991), “Ricochet” (1991), “Malcolm X” (1992), “Virtuosity” (1995), “Devil in a Blue Dress” (1995), “Fallen” (1998), and “He Got Game” (1998). “Virtuosity” (1995) may be remembered as the least of this group of movies. It was released to U.S. theaters on August 4, 1995. “Devil in a Blue Dress” was released to U.S. theaters on September 29, 1995, 56 days after “Virtuosity”. Both of those movies were released in the shadow of “Crimson Tide”, which was released to U.S. theaters on May 12, 1995.

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  5. Sounds like i will be Triple Dipping on Mystery of the Wax Museum...or is it quadruple dipping if we count the illicit scratchy dupe disc I bought way back in the day. I ADORE Two Strip technicolor films. it's like when you see sepia colored photos in an album, you pay a little more attention because they were TRYING to inject some lifelikeness into a flat image.

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  6. Now it's October and I have rewatched Mystery of the Wax Museum for like the 50th time... and I have come to a conclusion which I can't actually prove. I figure JBones will call me out if I am wrong...

    Because this was filmed with poor little Fay Wray was being worked 24/7/365.. I think the studio had Ben Hecht rewrite the script to have her on set for as few days as possible. It is Glenda Farrell and Frank McHugh spouting Hechtian lingua franca which makes this film one of my favorites, but it also creates an imbalance as the crime story gets most of the dialogue and obviously the German Expressionist horror elements provide most of the production value. Fay gets top billing yet gets very little dialogue which isn't wailing. To be fair I think Farrell's turn as spunky reporter earned her the Torchy Blain series, but she certainly is the hero of the piece.

    cheers

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  7. For what it's worth, I think you're on to something...

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  8. I loved your blog post about undefined. It was really interesting to see what you found on the internet and how you came to this conclusion. Vclubshop New Domain

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