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Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

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DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling

How does Film Noir show us terrible people doing terrible things without endorsing it?

AI✦Examines how the film withholds the murderer’s identity across multiple suspects to control audience moral judgment, distinguishing between the protagonist’s morally grey choices and the true crimes surrounding him.✦

⏱ 1h 10m

Character · Theme · Structure | 30 JAN 2026

Listen if you need audiences to root for characters who do terrible things

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Mel and Chas continue to explore what Noir (the genre) can teach writers of all other genres. In particular:… →

Films: Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) , Woman of the Hour (2024) , Double Indemnity (1944) , The Long Goodbye (1973)

Character: Character Motivation , Moral Ambiguity , Character Arcs , Antiheroes , Character Agency , Unreliable Narrator

Theme: Worldview , Representation and Endorsement

Structure: Dramatic Questions

"The system’s fucked. Like that’s the worldview and they’re both right."

— mel | DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling