Blood Simple

Blood Simple, the first motion picture created by independent filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. Released in 1984, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. A bar owner (played by Dan Hedaya) hires a private detective (M. Emmet Walsh) to murder his wife Abby (Frances McDormand) and her lover Ray (John Getz). The private detective fakes the wife’s death, collects payment from the bar owner, kills him, and frames Abby for the murder. In addition to a complicated plot, the film features dark, starkly shadowed settings in the style of the film noir crime movies of the 1940s and 1950s.

Director

• Joel Coen

Cast

• John Getz (Ray)
• Frances McDormand (Abby)
• Dan Hedaya (Julian Marty)
• M. Emmet Walsh (Private detective Visser)
• Samm-Art Williams (Maurice)
• Deborah Neumann (Debra)
• Raquel Gavia (Landlady)
• Van Brooks (Man from Lubbock)
• Senor Marco (Mr. Garcia)
• William Creamer (Old cracker)
• Loren Bivens (Strip-bar exhorter)
• Bob McAdams (Strip-bar senator)
• Shannon Sedwick (Stripper)
• Nancy Ginger (Girl on overlook)
• Rev. William Preston Robertson (Radio evangelist)

Awards

• Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Drama (1985)