Blue City is a 1986 American action thriller film directed by Michelle Manning and starring Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and David Caruso.

It is based on Ross Macdonald's 1947 novel of the same name about a young man who returns to a corrupt small town in Florida to avenge the death of his father.

[2] A young man, Billy Turner, returns to his hometown of Blue City, Florida, after five years away.

Annie, who works at the police station, starts to help Billy with investigating Jim's murder.

In addition, The Textones (Carla Olson, Joe Read, George Callins, Phil Seymour and Tom Morgan Jr.) appear in the film, performing their song "You Can Run".

[4] Walter Hill wrote the script with Lukas Heller and was originally intended to star a leading man in his mid-30s but by the mid-1980s a number of popular young male actors had emerged, so the script was rewritten to accommodate one of them.

[5] Her Breakfast Club co-producer was Ned Tanen and when he took over as head of production at Paramount, the studio agreed to finance Blue City with Manning's direction.

"Instead of having to make the rounds and go to casting calls and auditioning with hundreds of other guys, suddenly my agent has more offers coming in than I can possibly handle.

"[10] David Caruso had made a number of films for Paramount – An Officer and a Gentleman, Thief of Hearts – and said they specifically crafted his role for him.

In the public social scene, like at the Hard Rock Cafe, they have to deal with people coming up to them, asking for autographs, pulling on their clothes.

[13] The motorcycle used is apparently the same 1978/9 750cc Triumph Bonneville T140E used by Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) in which David Caruso also appeared.

"[citation needed] Los Angeles Daily News: "You haven't seen anything quite so ridiculous as a limp-jawed, dewy-eyed Nelson trying to carry off a tough guy part."

Judd Nelson would make a great shopping cart, Sheedy a still life of a cornflower gone to wilt.

"[citation needed] The New York Times: "(The main character has) a passion as rootless as an Everglades air plant.

Though his clothes suggest that he and Don Johnson patronize the same boutique, Mr. Nelson has the looks of someone who's come South on a spring break and overshot Fort Lauderdale.

"[14] Daily Variety: "Blue City is fictionally set in Florida, but was lensed entirely in California, thus managing to shame the citizenry on one coast and the film making industry on the other, all at the same time.

"[16] The Los Angeles Times wrote: How many ways can a movie go wrong?

How could you guess that a Ross MacDonald novel, scripted by action pros Walter Hill and Lukas Heller, would come out sounding addle-brained?

Or that Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy--of The Breakfast Club--could exhibit subzero chemistry?

It's a high-concept "Young '80s" reworking of MacDonald's 1947 Hammett-style thriller--with no Lew Archer, no metaphor and no edge.

And she was so excited about the chance to direct that my feeling was it would be really great to work with someone I really liked and help contribute to their first big project.

I was very naive, I guess, because I kept hoping it would turn out OK, that somehow all the stuff that was missing would miraculously appear when they edited it all together.

[19]Tanen's associate at Paramount, Dawn Steel, later said, "I suspect Michelle took her shot at directing too early.

"[7] Manning had a production deal at Paramount as a producer and was developing projects elsewhere as a director.