The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Love and lust, love and murder. James M. Cain, John Garfield and Lana Turner make a fine, tawdry story

With platinum hair, dark eyelashes and pouty lips, Cora Smith is a slut to dream about. Or maybe she's just an ambitious, dissatisfied wife, married to Nick, the fat older owner of a greasy roadside diner. Or maybe all those banked flames of hers are getting too much fresh oxygen from tough, dumb Frank Chambers, who drifts into her life and watches Cora's lipstick roll across the diner floor to his feet. It doesn't matter. Fate is walking slowly down the highway toward Cora and Frank. Nothing is going to change what passion and murder will bring them, and the twist of ironic justice sets them up for a great ending.

There are so many good things about this movie. The four obvious ones start with the story by James M. Cain. We're talking hot lust, dumb love and the kind of ironic inevitability that always comes in first-class noirs. There's the cynical display of the legal process, not quite corrupt -- what does justice have to do with the law? -- but rewarding to those who can best manipulate it. There's Lana Turner as Cora, no actress, but who makes believable the kind of blood-thumping single-mindedness that can turn a not-so-smart drifter into a willing participant in murder. She can offer sex and she can offer love, and neither we nor Frank is sure which has any truth. Frank will settle for the sex, but then he realizes with Cora he might have both. And there's John Garfield as Frank in a perfect performance as this flawed, gullible sap who thinks he can commit murder and call it love. All he wants is Cora on a hot night. He winds up wanting Cora for eternity, and is comforted that she'll be there for him.

Do many people remember John Garfield now? He made a name on Broadway and an even bigger name in Hollywood. He was a committed liberal who was ruined during the Commie witch-hunts. By the late Forties he couldn't find work in Hollywood. All those studio heads who made money from his films didn't want to touch him. He was no Communist, just too liberal for the frightened suits. Garfield's film career was in tatters. He was a first-class actor but naive when it came to politics. He couldn't understand what was happening to him. He died of heart failure in New York in 1952 while trying to reestablish himself on the stage. He was 39. To see just how good he was, watch his reaction shots in this movie...when he first sees Cora...when he has to get in the car next to Nick right after he's smashed Nick's skull with a bottle...when at the end of the movie he reads Cora's note and listens to the DA. Garfield's last major movie was Force of Evil in 1948. These two films demonstrate just how powerful a screen actor John Garfield was and how much this nation lost through expediency and intimidation.

The DVD transfer is just fine. Among the extras is a fine documentary about Garfield. October 1, 2008

dvd case arrives damaged

The DVD itself is in good condition, but the dvd case arrived damaged. The center piece was broken and so the dvd slid around the inside. This did not cause damage during shipment (although it easily could have). My concern is that over the course of time this problem could cause damage as the dvd is used. The damaged case was a disappointment. September 24, 2008

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman.

I have to agree with the other two-star reviews of this movie. The acting was marginal and the relationship between Garfield and Turner never sparks. Turner's "classic" entrance, with the lipstick rolling across the floor and the camera gliding up to her bare legs, really doesn't stand the test of time - however daring or sultry it may have seemed in the 40s it's just campy now, and to tell the truth I highly doubt it was ever that exciting. The whole mood has to be working for a film to support cinematographic conceits like that entrance, otherwise they come off as forced and transparent. Noir enthusiasts might accuse me of imposing today's standards on a classic movie, but I would counter that they are probably romanticizing the past. I haven't read the book, but I suspect that the adaptation was too anxious to include every episode from the original story because the last third of the movie skips hastily through lots of events that alter and re-alter the relationship between the Garfield and Turner, but we're never given time to digest them so we stop caring. For example, I think they could have cut the whole mom's-funeral-affair-with-floozy stage. It doesn't provide any drama or illuminate the characters; it's just a way to work in Turner's incriminating Dear John letter. Great movies don't feel so mechanical.
September 14, 2008

Lana at her beautiful best

I love Lana as an actress, but you can't top her beauty in her twenties. August 14, 2008

A classic Film Noire

Another post war classic Film Noire, touching on the angst of a femme fetale [Lana Turner] and her hapless illicit lover [John Garfield].

He knows all along he has walked into something he can neither resist, nor is wise or prudent to persue, but his own lust overwealms his better judgement and murder can't be too far behind.

The script is scintillating for the 40's, and barely made it through the censors of that era.

Turner is radiant as the young frustrated housewife of a middle aged cafe owner, and Garfield gives an Oscar worthy performance as her vagabound and beguilled lover.

One of the best films of its Era, this compares favorably to "Double Indemnity", Billy wilder's classic murder flick of the same theme.

Great Entertainment, and still holds up well in the New Millinium. April 29, 2008

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