The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Please don't spend money on this.

Great Film overall

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Better Late Then Never

The only part of the movie I enjoyed at all was the Nick Smith character played by Cecil Kellaway. The plot was boring. The characters Frank Chambers and Cora Smith were boring. I kept checking the clock, hoping that the movie was almost over.

I hadn't seen this movie is years when I decided to watch it again tonight. Frankly, it wasn't as good as I remember. It starts and stops and then starts again, especially after the lead couple murders Nick. (The movie goes on a LONG time after the couple murder Nick.) There are lots of things that don't make any real sense, either, such as the public defender's reasons for acting the way he does. What is good, though, indeed very good, is the presentation of Lana Turner's character. Few women have been presented as sexier while wearing their clothes. From the very moment we see her, it is clear that she is willing to seduce any good looking guy, even if that gets him in trouble. She appears to have no morals. John Garfield's character is more ambiguous, but then the whole movie is supposedly his confession to a priest, so it would stand to reason that he might try to paint himself in a better light and shift the blame for their behavior to Turner's character.Watch this for Turner, and the chemistry between her and Garfield. The less attention you pay to the plot, the less its weaknesses will bother you.

Plot—A penniless drifter stops by a roadside diner, and takes a job there after getting a load of the owner's sexy wife. Their relationship grows, while the middle-aged husband suspects nothing. Eventually, the two run away together, only to have the wife suddenly return, unable to leave the comforts of a successful business. But the two are unable to stay apart causing the drifter to return. Finally, the lovers decide to fake an accident killing the inconvenient husband. That way they can be together with all the comforts of the popular diner. That is, if things work out according to plan.Postman is indeed first-rate noir, a genuine classic. Both Turner and Garfield deserved at least Oscar nomination, along with the shifty-eyed Hume Cronyn in a supporting role. In fact their casting was really inspired. Apparently, the chemistry between the two leads smoldered off- screen (IMDB) as well as on.In her angelic white outfits (a wardrobe note of irony), Turner's spider woman reaches iconic status. In fact, I can't help noting her darn near perfect complexion throughout, smooth as silk and a perfect mask. Garfield's streetwise drifter, Chambers, is also superbly realized. Probably, Chambers should have followed his instincts instead of his libido after that first iconic meeting. For it turns out that it is Cora who can't give up the seductions of a comfortable life-style even for his love. It also turns out that neither lover has murder in his or her heart, but together they're trapped. She's trapped by desire for comfort and his smarts; he's struck blind by desire for her short shorts. I guess their mutual attraction is what the French might call "amour fou" (crazy love). In this case, however, love doesn't conquer all until it's too late. Perhaps then it is fate that their long, crooked path should end in tragedy.At the same time, I doubt the legal profession was very happy with the movie's behind-the- scenes legal maneuvering. Cora's attorney Keats (Cronyn) manages to manipulate the law and DA Sackett (Ames) into freeing her, despite her guilt. In short, guilt and innocence is shown as secondary to bargaining outside the courtroom between attorneys. Juries, it seems, don't really matter. All in all, I take the movie's last scenes as a sop to the censors. In fact, the screenplay pushes the 1940's envelope with infidelity, wedlock pregnancy, and Turner's unabashed allure. So some kind of righteous redress was, I guess, required by the watchdogs. Still, the sexual subtext is too strong to override with a last minute gesture to convention. It's probably also relevant that a symbolic swim in the cleansing ocean should prepare the couple for what amounts to after-life redemption. While In that same memorable scene, Cora confesses her sins, even as she struggles atop a black sea of eternity. Thus the powerful symbolism of that dark sea and the plot's underlying fatalism are compromised by what amounts to a last minute appeal to religious convention.I do have a couple gripes. Are we really expected to believe that Cora's middle-aged husband and diner owner, Nick (Kellaway), suspects nothing between his sexy wife and the studly Chambers. And that's even after he stumbles on them in suggestive settings. Now, I'm willing to suspend disbelief during a movie, but only up to a point. In a serious film like this, the point was quickly and unhappily surpassed. Some hint that maybe Nick knows, but puts up with it for bigger reasons, would have helped. The other gripe is a minor one but worth mentioning in a quality film. And that's how easily Chambers beats up the burly Kennedy. Come on director Garnett, that's about as plausible as barroom brawl in a kid's matinée.All in all, Postman's a true noir classic, one of the few to justify a two-hour runtime. Too bad the film and its stars were overlooked Oscar-wise. But then, I guess the lurid content upset too many important people. But it's still a good gripping film to catch up with, that is, if you haven't already.

A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband... but even once the deed is done, they must live with the consequences of their actions.Surprisingly, this version was actually the third filming of The Postman Always Rings Twice, but the first under the novel's original title and the first in English. Previously, the novel had been filmed as Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Turning) in France in 1939, and as Ossessione (Obsession) in Italy in 1943.Bosley Crowther gave the film a positive review and lauded the acting and direction of film, writing, "Too much cannot be said for the principals. Mr. Garfield reflects to the life the crude and confused young hobo who stumbles aimlessly into a fatal trap. And Miss Turner is remarkably effective as the cheap and uncertain blonde who has a pathetic ambition to 'be somebody' and a pitiful notion that she can realize it through crime." Despite the multiple versions, this is probably the "definitive" one. It certainly is the one that went on to be influential. I even recall such an unlikely place as "Sesame Street" making a parody of it, which is bizarre considering this was probably not a movie that appealed to kids.