Devil in a Blue Dress. - movie reviews

Christian Century, May 15, 1996 by Leo D. Lefebure

Daphne, who is the "devil in a blue dress," warns us of our collective blindness. She desperately believes that if only her biracial ancestry can be kept secret from the public, the wealthy family of her beloved will allow the couple to marry. Even when the threat of publicity is removed, however, the racial barrier remains as firmly in place as before, and individual romantic emotions are powerless to break it. Her beloved Todd Carter (Terry Kinney), soon to b mayor of Los Angeles, professes that he loves her, but he is too frightened to marry her. As Easy comments, "She was in love and couldn't see for dreaming--any better than the rest of us."

At the end of the movie, a final question lingers concerning the meaning of friendship and goodness in such a world. Having returned safely to his porch, Easy asks his friend Odell (Albert Hall), "If you have a friend you know does bad things--you know, real bad things--can you still keep him as a friend even though you know what he's like? You think that's wrong?" Odell ponders the question and replies: "All you got is your friend." Later on, Easy notes that Odell goes to church every Sunday, and so he would know about such things. Easy and Odell play dominoes and get drunk, and Easy forgets, at least for a time, all about the world of corruption. "And we laughed a long time."