Black Day Blue Night (1995) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

This film is your basic sweaty American desert noir story. Everyone mops their brows. Crimes occur. Criminals flee the police.  Innocents may be in the way. But who is innocent?

The film begins as an armed women (Mia Sara) interrupts some coupling between her husband and an attractive blonde (Michelle Forbes) in a motel. The wife is obviously shy and meek, and no gunfire is exchanged. Both women just want to get away from the creepy husband so, even though they are strangers, they end up leaving together. They get caught in a rain storm, and end up stuck in the mud on the side of the road. As they prepare to bed down inside the car, they see a face at the window. It's a hitchhiking drifter stuck in the storm. Creeped out and scared, the women use their weapon to drive him off into the soggy night. The women run into him again the next morning in a cafe, but this time they judge him harmless and attractive, and the three eventually drive off on a road trip together: two women who do not really know each other and a drifter (Gil Bellows) carrying all of his earthly possessions in a single suitcase.

Meanwhile, a police officer (J.T. Walsh) is tracking down some thieves who robbed an armored truck and shot a cop in the getaway process. Only one of the thieves is still at large - a man, carrying a single suitcase full of money.

The cop gets an unexpected break in his pursuit. Somebody spent one of the marked bills from the robbery. It was a blonde - our blonde. The nature of the road trip changes somewhat because the three strangers in the old red Cadillac become fugitives, although they are not immediately aware of that fact.

The cop and the three fugitives finally meet up in the desert.

There you have the basic set-up. To say more would spoil the fun.

This is one of those films that started with a good enough script. If somebody like Tarantino had read the script and liked it and made it his own, Black Day Blue Night might be remembered today as a noir classic. As it is, the screenwriter also had to direct the film with a budget of about sixty cents, and he had no theatrical distribution. Frankly, J.S. Cardone wasn't much of a director at the time, either. Altogether too many scenes consist entirely of facial close-ups. (To mitigate this criticism, let me say that I thought Cardone brought a lot more pizzazz to his direction of Outside Ozona, a similar noir which he wrote and directed three years later.)

Bottom line: the film is virtually forgotten. Black Day Blue Night is not even on DVD in Region 1, and it isn't available in a widescreen version anywhere on any medium, at least to my knowledge, but it's a respectable genre script, filled with the usual twists and turns, and a strange, unexpected, heartbreaking ending which is perfectly appropriate for any noir true to its roots. If you like the whole American Noir thing, and can overlook the non-existent production values, you should enjoy the story, the steamy nudity, and the sleazy pursuit by J.T. Walsh as the tough cop.