The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Tay Garnett

Writers:

Harry Ruskin (screenplay) and
Niven Busch (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

2 May 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Their Love was a Flame that Destroyed!

Plot:

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.

Plot Keywords:

Drifter | Murder | District Attorney | Murder Of Husband | Marriage

Cast

Lana Turner	...	Cora Smith
John Garfield	...	Frank Chambers
Cecil Kellaway	...	Nick Smith
Hume Cronyn	...	Arthur Keats
Leon Ames	...	Kyle Sackett
Audrey Totter	...	Madge Gorland
Alan Reed	...	Ezra Liam Kennedy
Jeff York	...	Blair

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Canada:18A (video rating) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | USA:Approved (PCA #11240) | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (1996)

Filming Locations:

Norwalk Train Station, Norwalk, California, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

After the first murder attempt, Nick is hospitalized in Blair General Hospital, also the locale for MGM's "Dr. Kildare" (1961) franchise.

Goofs:

Continuity: Frank and Cora are further apart, then closer together, when they get home from the late night swim.

Quotes:

Frank Chambers: I can sell anything to anybody.
Cora Smith: That's what you think.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Exhumed (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

She's Funny That Way

Good Atmospheric Film-Noir With A Memorable Role For Lana Turner

The good atmosphere and Lana Turner's memorable role make this a film-noir classic worth seeing. The story starts out to be relatively simple, allowing the cast and the atmosphere to carry it, and then heads through a series of twists and turns, picking up the pace as it goes along.

John Garfield and the supporting cast are solid, but it is Turner who really stands out and grabs the attention anytime she is on-screen. It's nothing against Garfield to say that in comparison he is almost just along for the ride, yet he does a creditable job and makes his character believable. The supporting cast helps out as well, with Cecil Kellaway on-target as Turner's oblivious husband, and Hume Cronyn likewise in good form as a conscience-free lawyer.

The story pulls you in slowly, and then has some good turns as it picks up steam towards the middle. There may be a couple of too-convenient plot developments, but otherwise it is well-written.

This classic version is quite a bit better than the early 1980s remake, which required little imagination to make or to watch. Turner's character and performance, in particular (aided by good camera work), demonstrate that the suggestive can be quite a bit more effective and memorable than the explicit.

"The Postman Always Rings Twice" has just about everything you could ask for in a film-noir. It's probably just a cut below the best of the genre, and still one of the movies that most fans of film-noir would not want to miss.