The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

Director:

Bob Rafelson

Writers:

James M. Cain (novel)
David Mamet (screenplay)

Release Date:

20 March 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller | Romance

Tagline:

You Will Feel The Heat.

Plot:

The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.

Plot Keywords:

Drifter | Murder | Cafe | Lunch Wagon | Remake

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Jack Nicholson	...	Frank Chambers
Jessica Lange	...	Cora Papadakis
John Colicos	...	Nick Papadakis
Michael Lerner	...	Mr. Katz
John P. Ryan	...	Kennedy
Anjelica Huston	...	Madge
William Traylor	...	Sackett
Thomas Hill	...	Barlow (as Tom Hill)
Jon Van Ness	...	Motorcycle Cop
Brian Farrell	...	Mortenson
Raleigh Bond	...	Insurance Salesman
William Newman	...	Man from Home Town
Albert Henderson	...	Art Beeman
Ken Magee	...	Scoutmaster
Eugene Peterson	...	Doctor
Don Calfa	...	Goebel
Louis Turenne	...	Ringmaster
Charles B. Jenkins	...	Gas Station Attendant
Dick Balduzzi	...	Sign Man #1
John Furlong	...	Sign Man #2
Sam Edwards	...	Ticket Clerk
Betty Cole	...	Grandmother
Joni Palmer	...	Granddaughter
Ron Flagge	...	Shoeshine Man
Lionel Mark Smith	...	Crapshooter (as Lionel Smith)
Brion James	...	Crapshooter
Frank Arno	...	Crapshooter
Virgil Frye	...	Crapshooter
Kenneth Cervi	...	Crapshooter
Chris Rellias	...	Greek Party (as Chris P. Rellias)
Theodoros A. Karavidas	...	Greek Party
Basil J. Fovos	...	Greek Party
Nick Hasir	...	Greek Party
Demetrios Liappas	...	Greek Party
James O'Connell	...	Judge
William H. McDonald	...	Bailiff
Elsa Raven	...	Matron
Kopi Sotiropulos	...	Greek Mourner
Tom Maier	...	Twin Oaks Customer
Glenn Shadix	...	Twin Oaks Customer
Tani Guthrie	...	Twin Oaks Customer
Carolyn Coates	...	Twin Oaks Customer
Jim S. Cash	...	Twin Oaks Customer
Christopher Lloyd	...	The Salesman
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Morgan Blanchard	...	Boy scout (uncredited)
Luther Fear	...	Jailer (uncredited)
Chuck Liddell	...	Boy scout (uncredited)

Directed by
Bob Rafelson

Writing credits
James M. Cain		(novel)
David Mamet		(screenplay)

Produced by
Michael Barlow	....	associate producer
Andrew Braunsberg	....	executive producer
Charles Mulvehill	....	producer
Bob Rafelson	....	producer

Original Music by
Michael Small

Cinematography by
Sven Nykvist

Film Editing by
Graeme Clifford

Casting by
Terry Liebling

Production Design by
George Jenkins

Set Decoration by
Robert Gould

Costume Design by
Dorothy Jeakins

Makeup Department
Dorothy J. Pearl	....	makeup artist
Toni-Ann Walker	....	hair stylist

Production Management
Gerald R. Molen	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Nick Marck	....	second assistant director
Bill Scott	....	assistant director (as Bill P. Scott)

Art Department
Joseph Hurley	....	assistant art director
Donald Krafft	....	lead man
William Maldonado	....	construction coordinator
Ray Mercer Jr.	....	property master
Arthur Shippee	....	assistant property master (uncredited)
William Ladd Skinner	....	set designer (uncredited)

Sound Department
Bub Asman	....	sound effects editor
Robert G. Henderson	....	supervising sound effects editor (as Bob Henderson)
Nicholas Vincent Korda	....	assistant sound effects editor
Gregg Landaker	....	sound re-recording mixer
Steve Maslow	....	sound re-recording mixer
Brian L. McCarty	....	sound recordist
Alan Robert Murray	....	supervising sound editor
Art Rochester	....	production sound mixer
Norman B. Schwartz	....	dialogue editor
Richard Thornton	....	boom operator
Bill Varney	....	sound re-recording mixer
Brooke H. Ward	....	assistant sound effects editor (as Brooke Henderson)

Special Effects by
Jerry D. Williams	....	special effects
Jan Aaris	....	special effects foreman (uncredited)

Stunts
Tom Elliott	....	stunts
Alan Gibbs	....	stunts
Richard Epper	....	stunts (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Richmond L. Aguilar	....	gaffer (as Richard Aguilar)
Martin G. Beazell	....	assistant camera
Earl L. Clark	....	assistant camera
Dick Colean	....	camera operator
Leonard Lookabaugh	....	key grip
Louis Mahler	....	video playback operator
Pete Martinez	....	video playback operator
Carol McCullough	....	still photographer
Michael Nash	....	assistant camera
Arnold L. Rich	....	camera operator
Brian L. McCarty	....	video assist operator (uncredited)

Casting Department
Barbara Lambertson	....	extras casting

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Tony Faso	....	costumer: men
Mina Mittelman	....	costumer: women
Eric H. Sandberg	....	costumer: men

Editorial Department
Mary Andrews	....	apprentice editor
Kimberly Ray	....	apprentice editor
Tim Tobin	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Daniel Allan Carlin	....	music editor
Dan Carlin Sr.	....	music editor
Jack Hayes	....	orchestrator

Transportation Department
Pat Carman	....	transportation captain
Michael McDuffee	....	transportation coordinator
Tom Briggs	....	set driver (uncredited)

Other crew
Wendy Atterbury	....	script supervisor
Blanche Bisbing	....	assistant auditor
Trixie Flynn	....	assistant: Mr. Nicholson
James Halpern	....	production assistant
Athan Karras	....	dialogue coach: Mr. Colicos
Paul Pascarella	....	title designer
Ken Ryan	....	accountant
Teresa Stokovic	....	production office coordinator
Douglas E. Stoll	....	location manager
Arthur Wilde	....	unit publicist
Jolene Wolff	....	assistant: Mr. Rafelson

Production Companies

• CIP Filmproduktion GmbH
• Lorimar Film Entertainment
• Northstar International

Distributors

• Adams Filmi (1981) (Finland) (theatrical)
• Sandrew Film & Teater (1981) (Sweden) (theatrical)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1986) (USA) (TV)
• Lorimar Home Vídeo (Brazil) (VHS)
• Oy Europa Vision AB (1988) (Finland) (video)
• Paramount Pictures
• Warner Home Vídeo (Brazil) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Wenn der Postmann zweimal klingelt (West Germany)

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

USA | West Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Finland:K-16 (1988) | Finland:K-18 (1981) | Singapore:PG (cut) | West Germany:18 (original rating) | Portugal:M/16 | France:-12 | Norway:15 | South Korea:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16 | Australia:R

Filming Locations:

Santa Barbara, California, USA

Company:

CIP Filmproduktion GmbH

Trivia:

In the mid-'70s, studio executives had mooted Raquel Welch as Cora, but backed off.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: When Cora walks to the door of the café after coming back from her mother's (1:38:25), her zipper and zipper pull show. What we see is an "invisible" zipper which were not invented until the early 1960s.

Quotes:

Cora: [disgusted, after seeing Frank drink milk directly from the bottle] Will you use a glass? What are you, an animal?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Best of Film Noir (1999) (V)

is it a remake or just another version of Cain's text? you decide

I say that one-line statement having yet to read James M. Cain's original (short) book, or the 1946 film starring John Garfield and Lana Turner. So I have now seen the Postman Always Rings Twice directed by Bob Rafelson and starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange twice now, and see it on its own terms without much to really compare it to. Perhaps my perceptions could change once I see the older Hollywood film (even though Luchino Visconti's own version of the book, Ossessione, is one of his masterpieces), but for the moment this is a fairly competent, sometimes exciting, and usually sensual story of lust, murder, thick plots and a few tight twists and turns. Nicholson's Frank Chambers is a sort of blue-collar wanderer who wanders into the life of Cora (Lange, rarely been sexier), who is married to a gregarious, overbearing lug, Papadakis (John Colicos, perfect in a character-actor bit), who with his wife run a little restaurant. Chambers works his way into not just Papadakis's good graces as a worker, but Cora's undergarments as well, so to speak. Soon a plot thickens between the two lovers over what to do with the other. Right out of the best film-noir, there's quite a sequence that spins as their scheme unfolds, which includes money as well as each other. That everything doesn't go quite to plan makes this film both captivating and cool, while sometimes frustrating.

Here Rafelson has his cast really locked in place like it can't go wrong. Nicholson as a street-wise tough guy who falls for a woman with whom there's immediate, sexual magnetism, but also has some flaws that come with the package- almost too easy for him but not a bad performance. Lange brings some dimension to a character that could be either a real prize or a true femme fatale. And character actors like Michael Lerner (only better in Barton Fink) and even featuring Angelica Huston in an early performance, add some good weight to the cast. The sex scenes years later are still enticing, and the ending is a true whopper that is part of the story's best catharsis, though in its own formula still tragic. If then it doesn't feel really as successful as the best noir of the 40s and 50s its almost hard to say. Sometimes scenes kinds of come and go, and the flow of the story sometimes gets jammed up after the midway mark goes by. It turns more into a domestic drama than something more exciting in the suspenseful turns early on. Just when Rafelson has his crew working to put life into some scenes, a few are a little flat in comparison.

Still, even if you have seen the original 40s takes on Cain's novel, it's never less than interesting what goes on thanks to the nature of the story. It's a look at very flawed, psychologically cruxed people who attempt at happiness in ways that change them for worse and for better (possibly more the former). Occasionally the sex could be in danger of veering off the more stylish side of the lust in the 40s noirs into soft-core land, but it's balanced out by its general professionalism and the acting randing from so-so-to-better-than-average. It's a like it or hate it film.