The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 film)

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The Postman Always Rings Twice

Directed by	Tay Garnett
Produced by	Carey Wilson
Written by	James M. Cain (novel), Harry Ruskin, Niven Busch
Starring	Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, Audrey Totter
Music by	George Bassman and Erich Zeisl
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	May 2, 1946 United States
Running time	113 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1946 film based on the 1934 novel by James M. Cain.

This adaptation of the novel is the best known, starring Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, and Audrey Totter. It was directed by Tay Garnett, with a score written by George Bassman and Erich Zeisl (the latter uncredited).

1 Plot summary
2 Title redux
3 Trivia
4 Other versions
5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Frank is a drifter who stops at a rural diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a young, beautiful woman, Cora, and her much older husband, Nick, who is of foreign extraction. Frank and Cora have an affair. Cora (a femme fatale figure) is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own and improve. She and Frank scheme to murder Nick in order to start a new life together without her losing the diner. Their first attempt at the murder is a failure, but they eventually succeed.

The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred, but doesn't have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another, he tries only Cora for the crime. Although they do turn against each other, a clever ploy from Cora's lawyer prevents Cora's full confession from coming into the hands of the prosecutor. With the tactic having failed to generate any new evidence for the prosecution, Cora benefits from a plea bargain in which she pleads guilty to manslaughter and receives probation.

Frank and Cora eventually patch together their tumultuous relationship, and now plan for a future together. But as they seem to be prepared finally to live "happily ever after", Cora dies in a car accident. Ironically, although it was in fact truly an accident, the circumstances seem suspicious enough that Frank is then wrongly convicted of murdering her by having staged the accident. He is sentenced to death.

[edit] Title redux

When informed that his last chance at a reprieve from his death sentence has been denied, and thus his execution is now at hand, Frank is at first incredulous that he will be executed for murdering Cora, even though he is innocent of having done so. But when informed that authorities now have irrefutable evidence of his guilt in the murder of Nick, Frank decides that his impending death is actually his overdue punishment for that crime, despite his official conviction being for killing Cora.

Frank contemplates that when a person is expecting to receive a letter, it is of no concern if at first he does not hear the postman ring the doorbell, because the postman will always ring a second time, and that second ring will invariably be heard. After they escaped legal punishment for Nick's murder, but nonetheless with Cora now dead and Frank on his way to the death chamber, he notes that the postman has indeed rung a second time for each of them.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Trivia

Except for two scenes in which she wears black, (one when she contemplates suicide and the other when she goes to her mother's funeral), Lana Turner wears only white in the film.

The film was voted #49 on the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Love Stories list.

This is the version which was referenced in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill 2.

The film was referenced in an episode of Charmed. In, Charmed Noir, one of the protagonists, Paige Matthews (portrayed by Rose McGowan) is magically sent to a fictional world set in the 1920s or 1930s. Upon arrival she decides to change her clothing to that typically worn in this era. Her new look is complemented by a fellow character who believes she looks like Lana Turner "straight out of The Postman Always Rings Twice, the good version" (ie: The 1940s, original film). Paige later calls herself Lana, in the episode, to disguise her real name.