Devil in a Blue Dress


1h 42m 1995
Devil in a Blue Dress

Brief Synopsis

It's 1948 and Los Angeles is booming, but Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins has seen better days.

Film Details

Also Known As
Djävulen i blå klänning, demonio vestido de azúl, El, diable en robe bleue
MPAA Rating
Genre
Suspense/Mystery
Adaptation
Crime
Drama
Period
Thriller
Release Date
1995
Production Company
Douglas Shamburger
Distribution Company
TriStar Pictures
Location
Los Angeles, California, USA

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 42m

Synopsis

It's 1948 and Los Angeles is booming, but Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins has seen better days. A decorated World War II veteran, he's just been fired and he's got house payments to make, so when he's offered a job locating the mysterious Daphne Monet, he doesn't waste much time saying yes. Now, he finds himself drawn into a web of murder, blackmail, brutal cops and city politics.

Crew

David Alstadter

Foley Mixer

Carole Kravetz Aykanian

Editor

Jesse B'franklin

Producer

Alan Baptiste

On-Set Dresser

Matt Barry

Casting Associate

Elmer Bernstein

Music Composer

Emilie A Bernstein

Original Music

Stu Bernstein

Sound Editor

Martine Beswicke

Assistant

Cynthia Black

Costumes

Will Blount

Property Master

Gary Bourgeois

Rerecording

Bradley J Bovee

Stunts

Marty Branscomb

Other

Alex Brown

Stunts

Malcolm Brown

Camera Operator

Tony Brubaker

Stunt Coordinator

Tony Brubaker

Stunts

Sam Bruskin

Production Assistant

Courtney Byrd

Production Assistant

Martin Charles

Graphic Designer

Renee Clare

Production Assistant

Russell Clark

Choreographer

Cody Cluff

Special Thanks To

J C Cole

Dolly Grip

Mark Cotone

Assistant Director

James M. Cox

Best Boy

Claudette Cucci

Foley

John Cucci

Foley

Karen M Davis

Set Costumer

Sharen Davis

Costume Designer

Vince Deadrick

Stunts

Ronald Dellums

Production Assistant

Jonathan Demme

Executive Producer

Michael Dressel

Foley Editor

Kathy Durning

Music Editor

Yusef G Edmonds

Other

Will Ehbrecht

Production Assistant

Mitchell El-mahdy

Other

Jerry Enright

Rigging Gaffer

Pablo Ferro

Titles

Chris Figler

Assistant Editor

Anne C. Ford

Accounting Assistant

Carl Franklin

Screenplay

Katterli Frauenfelder

Assistant Director

Gary Frutkoff

Production Designer

Tak Fujimoto

Director Of Photography

Tak Fujimoto

Dp/Cinematographer

Jessica Gallavan

Adr Editor

Stephen Gelber

Music

Alex Gibson

Music Editor

Donna Gigliotti

Associate Producer

Gary Goetzman

Producer

Cheryle Grace

On-Set Dresser

Moonstar Greene

Assistant Editor

Robert Grieve

Sound Editor

Ira M Hammons-glass

Set Costumer

Dick Hancock

Stunts

Barbara Harris

Other

Monica Haynes

Costumes

Dwayne Henkel

Boom Operator

Mo Henry

Negative Cutting

Brent Lon Herschman

Other

Tracey Hinds

Production Assistant

Joy Hooper

Stunts

Nancy Duvall Horne

Assistant

S Beth Horton

Assistant Camera Operator

Thomas Imperato

Associate Producer

Marisol Jimenez

Art Department Coordinator

Kathy Mcdonald Jones

Assistant Production Coordinator

Robin Jorden

Production Assistant

Mark Lanza

Sound Editor

Christopher Lee

Production Assistant

Jim Lewis

Stunts

Stephanie Liner

Special Thanks To

Mark "travis" Little

On-Set Dresser

Hector Lopez

Props Assistant

Stephanie Lowry

Assistant Sound Editor

Ricardo Lozier

Craft Service

Steve Mann

Sound Editor

Chris Martin

Production Assistant

Linda Martin-spelta

Assistant Sound Editor

Jeanne Mccarthy

Casting Associate

Vinita Mcclennon

Stunts

Dwayne Mcgee

Stunts

Roy Mclaughlin

Transportation Captain

Peter Mcmanus

Accounting Assistant

Wayne Middleton

Location Manager

Walter Mosley

Associate Producer

Walter Mosley

Source Material

Walter Mosley

Source Material (From Novel)

John Murray

Foley Editor

Jacqueline Nadler

Production Assistant

Eric Oliver

Assistant Director

Joel Osborne

On-Set Dresser

Kathryn Peters

Set Decorator

Ken Peterson

Transportation Coordinator

Lauren Polizzi

Set Designer

Monica Ragan

Assistant Property Master

David Rogow

Assistant Editor

Bobby Rose

Key Grip

Erich Rose

Best Boy Grip

Riki Lin Sabusawa

Costumes

Kirk Saduski

Assistant

P Scott Sakamoto

Steadicam Operator

P Scott Sakamoto

Camera Operator

Greg Sanger

On-Set Dresser

Edward Saxon

Executive Producer

John-clay Scott

Stunts

Roy Seeger

Assistant Sound Editor

Ken Segal

Sound Mixer

Tony Selznick

Choreographer

Douglas Shamburger

Cable Operator

Steven Shareshian

Production Accountant

Edna M Sheen

Makeup Artist

Dan Sherman

Rerecording

Jason Sica

Hair Stylist

Charles Skouras

Unit Production Manager

Cheryl T Smith

Set Designer

Chris Snyder

Construction Coordinator

Baird Steptoe

Assistant Camera Operator

D Stevens

Photography

Cathy Sutton

Assistant

Bruce Talamon

Photography

Gary Tandrow

Lighting Technician

Vickie Thomas

Casting

Gwynn Turnbull

Stunts

Christa Vausbinder

Production Coordinator

Ken Walker

Hair Stylist

Tyrone S Walker

Dga Trainee

Dan Wallin

Other

Tom Ward

Special Effects Supervisor

Fatima Washington

Production Assistant

Big Daddy Wayne

Stunts

Daniel R Webster

Art Director

John Wehn

Production Assistant

Annie Welles

Script Supervisor

Darryl Lemont Wharton

Production Assistant

Gina White

Assistant

Randy Wiggins

Other

Ralph Winiger

Special Effects

Wayne Witherspoon

Production Assistant

Shawn Woodyard

Stunts

Dan Yale

Sound Editor

Mira Zavidowsky

Costume Supervisor

Videos

Movie Clip

Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) -- (Movie Clip) My Adopted Son, Jesus In 1948 L-A, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins (Denzel Washington), after being beaten up by police over the murder of his one-night stand Coretta, gets an offer from mayoral candidate Terell (Maury Chaykin), who has questions, including some about the missing girlfriend of the other candidate, whom he’s been hired to find, in Devil In A Blue Dress, 1995.
Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) -- (Movie Clip) My Name's Not Fella Evocative opening of 1948 South Los Angeles, we meet Denzel Washington as novelist Walter Mosley’s hero Easy Rawlins, unemployed veteran, Steve Randazzo as his ex-boss, in director Carl Franklin’s Devil In A Blue Dress, 1995.
Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) -- (Movie Clip) Daphne Has A Predilection Unemployed L-A machinist Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington), worried about his mortgage and looking for work, follows up on a lead from a friend and meets with shady Albright (Tom Sizemore) who, it turns out, wants him to find a mayoral candidate’s fianceè (Jennifer Beals), in Devil In A Blue Dress, 1995.
Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) -- (Movie Clip) You Ain't Jumped Out No Windows? Gaining entrance to an unlicensed bar in 1948 South Central L-A, unemployed Easy (Denzel Washington), hired to find a white woman named Daphne, meets old pal Junior, (David Fonteno) then Jeris Poindexter, Albert Hall, Jernard Burks and Lisa Nicole Carson as Coretta, in Devil In A Blue Dress, 1995.
Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) -- (Movie Clip) Why Don't You Search Me? At last the dress and the title character, Daphne (Jennifer Beals), the missing fianceè of a mayoral candidate and friend of murdered Coretta, has called novice detective Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) to see her at Ambassador Hotel, L-A, 1948, in Devil In A Blue Dress, 1995, from the Walter Mosley novel.

Hosted Intro

Film Details

Also Known As
Djävulen i blå klänning, demonio vestido de azúl, El, diable en robe bleue
MPAA Rating
Genre
Suspense/Mystery
Adaptation
Crime
Drama
Period
Thriller
Release Date
1995
Production Company
Douglas Shamburger
Distribution Company
TriStar Pictures
Location
Los Angeles, California, USA

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 42m

Articles

Devil in a Blue Dress


For avid readers of mystery and crime novels, the stories of African-American novelist Walter Mosley featuring his detective hero Easy Rawlins were a unique and welcome addition to an overly familiar genre. And it was no surprise when Devil in a Blue Dress, the first of a quartet of novels featuring Rawlins, was optioned by a Hollywood studio and later brought to the screen in 1995 by director Carl Franklin and Denzel Washington, who not only played the lead but helped finance it; it was the first film for his production company, Mundy Lane.

Set in Los Angeles in the forties, the film opens as Easy Rawlins, a recently unemployed aircraft plant worker, goes looking for work so he can pay his house mortgage. Desperate for money, he agrees to help find the missing Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) for a shady businessman named De Witt Albright (Tom Sizemore). It turns out that Daphne is the girlfriend of the current frontrunner for city mayor, Todd Carter (Terry Kinney). And as Easy tries to track Daphne down he finds himself caught up in the middle of a dangerous political rivalry where he is being set up as a fall guy. As a safety precaution he recruits his gun-happy friend Mouse (Don Cheadle) as backup support and eventually uncovers the mystery surrounding Daphne as the bodies pile up.

Universal first acquired the rights to Devil in a Blue Dress and hired Walter Mosley to adapt his own novel for the screen but the author soon realized it was not his forte and went back to writing fiction; the project languished in preproduction limbo until director Jonathan Demme entered the scene. He bought the rights with the intention to direct until he learned that Carl Franklin was also deeply interested in the project. Demme had just seen Franklin's critically acclaimed crime drama, One False Move (1992), and agreed to partner with him on Devil. With Franklin secured as director, Demme then pitched the project to Mike Medavoy, the chairman of Tri-Star, who approved it, and Denzel Washington's involvement as star and co-producer followed soon after that.

In Denzel Washington: His Films and Career by Douglas Brode, the actor stated his reasons for wanting to play Easy: "We'd never really seen South-Central Los Angeles from that time, so it was fresh territory...It was real!. Easy's a regular guy who's in over his head in a crazy situation. When I'm down at the station, being questioned by the police, I'm scared. It's how you react in real life - you're not so tough when you got a billy club up the side of your head." The decision not to play Easy as a tough guy detective in the Humphrey Bogart mold was, in fact, true to the character in Mosley's novel; he was just an ordinary guy who was out of work and needed money. He wasn't a private eye but he had a natural cunning and keen survival skills.

Prior to filming Franklin scouted out locations for the film and found a four block section of Main Street in downtown Los Angeles, near Pico, that could be redressed for period city scenes. But Easy's neighborhood had to be recreated since the original community had long since been destroyed in the Watts riots.

Franklin also immersed himself in the period through photo research and by interviewing jazz musicians and other Los Angeles residents from the late forties who recalled the vivid nightlife and bustling community that existed at the intersection of Central Avenue and 103rd Street back then. "He's really a history professor trapped in a movie director's body," Washington said of Franklin. "You know he's always going to get deep into things." In addition to capturing the forties atmosphere, Franklin puts a new spin on certain detective film stereotypes. Daphne, who at first looks like the standard femme fatale, turns out to be a tragic heroine with a secret identity. And Mouse could easily represent Easy's dark side, the sort of homicidal, criminally-minded character he might have become if he had chosen a different path.

"Film Noir is one of my favorite genres," Franklin later stated in an interview, "although I don't think you need to approach it as a genre when you do it....I like detective kind of things. But what I never liked about them is the inaccessibility of the characters. Usually they're people that you never run into in real life. You know, where does [Philip] Marlowe live? Who's his mom? Where did he come from?...The thing about these people is that they were all people I had seen before. Easy lives in a neighborhood."

When Devil in a Blue Dress opened theatrically, it received mostly positive reviews from the nation's leading critics. Time reviewer Richard Schickel wrote "Carl Franklin's cool, expert adaptation of Devil in a Blue Dress...evokes the spirit of '40s film noir more effectively than any movie since Chinatown [1974]" and added that Denzel Washington as Easy "gracefully reanimates a lost American archetype, the lonely lower-class male absorbing more cigarette smoke, bourbon whiskey and nasty beatings than is entirely healthy, as he pursues miscreants and moral imperatives down mean, palm-lined streets." Washington's performance deserved to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar® but the film was virtually ignored by the Academy voters, even Don Cheadle's scene-stealing supporting role as the wildly unpredictable Mouse.

Budgeted at $20 million dollars, Devil in a Blue Dress only took in $16 million at the box office which was a great disappointment for Franklin, Washington and everyone else who worked on the film as a labor of love. Mosley fans were disappointed too because the film's financial failure meant no more Easy Rawlins movies - A Red Death, White Butterfly, and Black Betty have yet to make it to the big screen. Denzel Washington later commented on the film's inability to attract a wide audience: "They say period pieces are [a] hard [sell]. We also opened the weekend of the O.J. Simpson verdict, which didn't help. But making fifty million dollars the first weekend is not the criterion for whether it's a good film." Devil in a Blue Dress is more than a good film and easily ranks among the best work that Franklin, Washington and Cheadle have done.

Producer: Jesse Beaton, Gary Goetzman
Director: Carl Franklin
Screenplay: Carl Franklin, Walter Mosley (book)
Cinematography: Tak Fujimoto
Film Editing: Carole Kravetz
Art Direction: Dan Webster
Music: Elmer Bernstein, Bernard Hanighen
Cast: Denzel Washington (Easy Rawlins), Tom Sizemore (DeWitt Albright), Jennifer Beals (Daphne Monet), Don Cheadle (Mouse Alexander), Maury Chaykin (Matthew Terell), Terry Kinney (Todd Carter).
C-102m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.

by Jeff Stafford

SOURCES:

Denzel Washington: His Films and Career by Douglas Brode
Devil In A Blue Dress

Devil in a Blue Dress

For avid readers of mystery and crime novels, the stories of African-American novelist Walter Mosley featuring his detective hero Easy Rawlins were a unique and welcome addition to an overly familiar genre. And it was no surprise when Devil in a Blue Dress, the first of a quartet of novels featuring Rawlins, was optioned by a Hollywood studio and later brought to the screen in 1995 by director Carl Franklin and Denzel Washington, who not only played the lead but helped finance it; it was the first film for his production company, Mundy Lane. Set in Los Angeles in the forties, the film opens as Easy Rawlins, a recently unemployed aircraft plant worker, goes looking for work so he can pay his house mortgage. Desperate for money, he agrees to help find the missing Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) for a shady businessman named De Witt Albright (Tom Sizemore). It turns out that Daphne is the girlfriend of the current frontrunner for city mayor, Todd Carter (Terry Kinney). And as Easy tries to track Daphne down he finds himself caught up in the middle of a dangerous political rivalry where he is being set up as a fall guy. As a safety precaution he recruits his gun-happy friend Mouse (Don Cheadle) as backup support and eventually uncovers the mystery surrounding Daphne as the bodies pile up. Universal first acquired the rights to Devil in a Blue Dress and hired Walter Mosley to adapt his own novel for the screen but the author soon realized it was not his forte and went back to writing fiction; the project languished in preproduction limbo until director Jonathan Demme entered the scene. He bought the rights with the intention to direct until he learned that Carl Franklin was also deeply interested in the project. Demme had just seen Franklin's critically acclaimed crime drama, One False Move (1992), and agreed to partner with him on Devil. With Franklin secured as director, Demme then pitched the project to Mike Medavoy, the chairman of Tri-Star, who approved it, and Denzel Washington's involvement as star and co-producer followed soon after that. In Denzel Washington: His Films and Career by Douglas Brode, the actor stated his reasons for wanting to play Easy: "We'd never really seen South-Central Los Angeles from that time, so it was fresh territory...It was real!. Easy's a regular guy who's in over his head in a crazy situation. When I'm down at the station, being questioned by the police, I'm scared. It's how you react in real life - you're not so tough when you got a billy club up the side of your head." The decision not to play Easy as a tough guy detective in the Humphrey Bogart mold was, in fact, true to the character in Mosley's novel; he was just an ordinary guy who was out of work and needed money. He wasn't a private eye but he had a natural cunning and keen survival skills. Prior to filming Franklin scouted out locations for the film and found a four block section of Main Street in downtown Los Angeles, near Pico, that could be redressed for period city scenes. But Easy's neighborhood had to be recreated since the original community had long since been destroyed in the Watts riots. Franklin also immersed himself in the period through photo research and by interviewing jazz musicians and other Los Angeles residents from the late forties who recalled the vivid nightlife and bustling community that existed at the intersection of Central Avenue and 103rd Street back then. "He's really a history professor trapped in a movie director's body," Washington said of Franklin. "You know he's always going to get deep into things." In addition to capturing the forties atmosphere, Franklin puts a new spin on certain detective film stereotypes. Daphne, who at first looks like the standard femme fatale, turns out to be a tragic heroine with a secret identity. And Mouse could easily represent Easy's dark side, the sort of homicidal, criminally-minded character he might have become if he had chosen a different path. "Film Noir is one of my favorite genres," Franklin later stated in an interview, "although I don't think you need to approach it as a genre when you do it....I like detective kind of things. But what I never liked about them is the inaccessibility of the characters. Usually they're people that you never run into in real life. You know, where does [Philip] Marlowe live? Who's his mom? Where did he come from?...The thing about these people is that they were all people I had seen before. Easy lives in a neighborhood." When Devil in a Blue Dress opened theatrically, it received mostly positive reviews from the nation's leading critics. Time reviewer Richard Schickel wrote "Carl Franklin's cool, expert adaptation of Devil in a Blue Dress...evokes the spirit of '40s film noir more effectively than any movie since Chinatown [1974]" and added that Denzel Washington as Easy "gracefully reanimates a lost American archetype, the lonely lower-class male absorbing more cigarette smoke, bourbon whiskey and nasty beatings than is entirely healthy, as he pursues miscreants and moral imperatives down mean, palm-lined streets." Washington's performance deserved to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar® but the film was virtually ignored by the Academy voters, even Don Cheadle's scene-stealing supporting role as the wildly unpredictable Mouse. Budgeted at $20 million dollars, Devil in a Blue Dress only took in $16 million at the box office which was a great disappointment for Franklin, Washington and everyone else who worked on the film as a labor of love. Mosley fans were disappointed too because the film's financial failure meant no more Easy Rawlins movies - A Red Death, White Butterfly, and Black Betty have yet to make it to the big screen. Denzel Washington later commented on the film's inability to attract a wide audience: "They say period pieces are [a] hard [sell]. We also opened the weekend of the O.J. Simpson verdict, which didn't help. But making fifty million dollars the first weekend is not the criterion for whether it's a good film." Devil in a Blue Dress is more than a good film and easily ranks among the best work that Franklin, Washington and Cheadle have done. Producer: Jesse Beaton, Gary Goetzman Director: Carl Franklin Screenplay: Carl Franklin, Walter Mosley (book) Cinematography: Tak Fujimoto Film Editing: Carole Kravetz Art Direction: Dan Webster Music: Elmer Bernstein, Bernard Hanighen Cast: Denzel Washington (Easy Rawlins), Tom Sizemore (DeWitt Albright), Jennifer Beals (Daphne Monet), Don Cheadle (Mouse Alexander), Maury Chaykin (Matthew Terell), Terry Kinney (Todd Carter). C-102m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning. by Jeff Stafford SOURCES: Denzel Washington: His Films and Career by Douglas Brode

Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004)


Elmer Bernstein, the film composer who created unforgettable music for such classics as The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, and won his only Academy Award for Thoroughly Modern Millie, died of natural causes at his Ojai, California home on August 17. He was 82.

Elmer Bernstein, who was not related to Leonard Bernstein, was born on August 4, 1922, in New York City. He displayed a talent in music at a very young age, and was given a scholarship to study piano at Juilliard when he was only 12. He entered New York University in 1939, where he majored in music education. After graduating in 1942, he joined the Army Air Corps, where he remained throughout World War II, mostly working on scores for propaganda films. It was around this time he became interested in film scoring when he went to see William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), a film whose score was composed by Bernard Herrmann, a man Bernstein idolized as the ideal film composer.

Bernstein, who originally intended to be a concert pianist and gave several performances in New York after being discharged from military service, decided to relocate to Hollywood in 1950. He did his first score for the football film Saturday's Hero (1950), and then proved his worth with his trenchant, moody music for the Joan Crawford vehicle Sudden Fear (1952). Rumors of his "communist" leanings came to surface at this time, and, feeling the effects of the blacklist, he found himself scoring such cheesy fare as Robot Monster; Cat Women of the Moon (both 1953); and Miss Robin Caruso (1954).

Despite his politics, Otto Preminger hired him to do the music for The Man With the Golden Arm, (1955) in which Frank Sinatra played a heroin-addicted jazz musician. Fittingly, Bernstein used some memorable jazz motifs for the film and his fine scoring put him back on the map. It prompted the attention of Cecil B. De Mille, who had Bernstein replace the ailing Victor Young on The Ten Commandments (1956). His thundering, heavily orchestrated score perfectly suite the bombastic epic, and he promptly earned his first Oscar® nod for music.

After The Ten Commandments (1956), Bernstein continued to distinguish himself in a row of fine films: The Rainmaker (1956), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Some Came Running (1958), The Magnificent Seven (a most memorable galloping march, 1960); To Kill a Mockingbird (unique in its use of single piano notes and haunting use of a flute, 1962); Hud (1963); earned a deserved Academy Award for the delightful, "flapper" music for the Julie Andrews period comedy Thoroughly Modern Mille (1967), and True Grit (1969).

His career faltered by the '80s though, as he did some routine Bill Murray comedies: Meatballs (1980) and Stripes (1981). But then director John Landis had Bernstein write the sumptuous score for his comedy Trading Places (1983), and Bernstein soon found himself back in the game. He then graced the silver screen for a few more years composing some terrific pieces for such popular commercial hits as My Left Foot (1989), A River Runs Through It (1992) and The Age of Innocence (1993). Far From Heaven, his final feature film score, received an Oscar® nomination for Best Score in 2002. He is survived by his wife, Eve; sons Peter and Gregory; daughters Emilie and Elizabeth; and five grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole

Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004)

Elmer Bernstein, the film composer who created unforgettable music for such classics as The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, and won his only Academy Award for Thoroughly Modern Millie, died of natural causes at his Ojai, California home on August 17. He was 82. Elmer Bernstein, who was not related to Leonard Bernstein, was born on August 4, 1922, in New York City. He displayed a talent in music at a very young age, and was given a scholarship to study piano at Juilliard when he was only 12. He entered New York University in 1939, where he majored in music education. After graduating in 1942, he joined the Army Air Corps, where he remained throughout World War II, mostly working on scores for propaganda films. It was around this time he became interested in film scoring when he went to see William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), a film whose score was composed by Bernard Herrmann, a man Bernstein idolized as the ideal film composer. Bernstein, who originally intended to be a concert pianist and gave several performances in New York after being discharged from military service, decided to relocate to Hollywood in 1950. He did his first score for the football film Saturday's Hero (1950), and then proved his worth with his trenchant, moody music for the Joan Crawford vehicle Sudden Fear (1952). Rumors of his "communist" leanings came to surface at this time, and, feeling the effects of the blacklist, he found himself scoring such cheesy fare as Robot Monster; Cat Women of the Moon (both 1953); and Miss Robin Caruso (1954). Despite his politics, Otto Preminger hired him to do the music for The Man With the Golden Arm, (1955) in which Frank Sinatra played a heroin-addicted jazz musician. Fittingly, Bernstein used some memorable jazz motifs for the film and his fine scoring put him back on the map. It prompted the attention of Cecil B. De Mille, who had Bernstein replace the ailing Victor Young on The Ten Commandments (1956). His thundering, heavily orchestrated score perfectly suite the bombastic epic, and he promptly earned his first Oscar® nod for music. After The Ten Commandments (1956), Bernstein continued to distinguish himself in a row of fine films: The Rainmaker (1956), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Some Came Running (1958), The Magnificent Seven (a most memorable galloping march, 1960); To Kill a Mockingbird (unique in its use of single piano notes and haunting use of a flute, 1962); Hud (1963); earned a deserved Academy Award for the delightful, "flapper" music for the Julie Andrews period comedy Thoroughly Modern Mille (1967), and True Grit (1969). His career faltered by the '80s though, as he did some routine Bill Murray comedies: Meatballs (1980) and Stripes (1981). But then director John Landis had Bernstein write the sumptuous score for his comedy Trading Places (1983), and Bernstein soon found himself back in the game. He then graced the silver screen for a few more years composing some terrific pieces for such popular commercial hits as My Left Foot (1989), A River Runs Through It (1992) and The Age of Innocence (1993). Far From Heaven, his final feature film score, received an Oscar® nomination for Best Score in 2002. He is survived by his wife, Eve; sons Peter and Gregory; daughters Emilie and Elizabeth; and five grandchildren. by Michael T. Toole

Quotes

Trivia

Miscellaneous Notes

Nominated for the eighth annual (1995) Scripter Award, given by the Friends of the University of Southern California Libraries, for the best film adaptation of a book.

Winner of the 1995 award for Best Supporting Actor (Don Cheadle) from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Winner of the 1995 awards for Best Supporting Actor (Don Cheadle) and Best Cinematography from the National Society of Film Critics.

Released in United States Fall September 29, 1995

Released in United States November 1995

Released in United States on Video April 2, 1996

Released in United States September 1995

Shown at London Film Festival November 2-19, 1995.

Shown at San Sebastian Film Festival (in competition) September 14-23, 1995.

Began shooting March 21, 1994.

Completed shooting June 20, 1994.

Mundy Lane is actor Denzel Washington's production company.

Released in United States on Video April 2, 1996

Released in United States September 1995 (Shown at San Sebastian Film Festival (in competition) September 14-23, 1995.)

Released in United States Fall September 29, 1995

Released in United States November 1995 (Shown at London Film Festival November 2-19, 1995.)