Devil in a Blue Dress Opening Title Sequence

[@gggiraffe]

What is interesting & worth noting in this opening sequence is that it is completely dedicated to an amazing painting, yet you who posted this clip say nothing about it! Director Carl Franklin made an unusual but excellent choice for an introduction to his film by featuring the painting, "Bronzeville At Night," by Archibald J. Motley, Jr. According to Wikipedia, Motley was "most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, a time when African-American art reached new heights not just in New York, but across America." I thought the painting was so great that I found the title in an interview with Franklin & then googled to find out about the work & the artist. Motley was born in New Orleans in 1891, & died in Chicago in 1981. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1910s from which he graduated in 1918. Several of his paintings won awards, & Motley himself had the honor of being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. The first retrospective of Archibald Motley’s paintings in two decades is in its final weeks at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University: the exhibition, "Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist" opened on January 30, 2014 & is closing May 11th. There's a wealth of information on the Nasher site @nasher.duke.edu/motley/ , as well as four video documentaries that have also been uploaded to YT!

[@vatzjr]

Thanks for the comments. I had referenced the painting in the blog link below the video and briefly discussed it, but didn't go into as much detail about Motley as you did.

[@ProdValues]

@@vatzjr The painting is beautiful, leaves me breathless. I am so happy to have found the title and artist thanks to Rebecca and yourself! Thank you.

[@piperdavenport227]

Love this song. I can't believe it came out 70 years ago!

[@vatzjr]

Please refer to the link after "You can read the Opening Title Sequence review at," as there is plenty of other information which may be of interest to you.

[@DucaDelDuniel]

T- Bone Walker, "Westside baby".