The Postman Always Rings Twice
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The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1934 crime novel by James M. Cain.
The novel was quite successful and notorious upon publication, and is regarded as one of the more important crime novels of the 20th century. Fast-moving and brief (only about 100 pages long, depending on the edition), the novel's mix of sexuality and violence was startling in its time, and saw the book banned in Boston. [1]
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[edit] Story
The story is narrated in the first person by Frank, a young drifter who stops at a rural California 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 Papadakis, sometimes called "The Greek".
There is an immediate attraction between Frank and Cora, and they begin a passionate 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.
They plan on striking Nick's head and making it seem he fell and drowned in the bathtub. Cora fells him with a solid blow, but, due to a sudden power outage and the happenstance appearance of a policeman, the scheme is unsuccessful. Nick recovers and because of retrograde amnesia does not suspect that he narrowly avoided being killed.
Still determined to kill Nick, Frank and Cora repeat the first plan, only in a car. Nick is plied with wine, then struck and killed, then the car is crashed. Both Frank and Cora are injured. 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 is ultimately acquitted.
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 together, Cora dies in a car accident, which is where the book ends.
[edit] The Title
The title is something of a non sequitur; nowhere in the novel does a postman character appear, nor is one even alluded to. When asked for an explanation, Cain stated that the manuscript had been rejected by 13 publishers prior to being accepted for publication on his 14th attempt, so that when the publisher asked him what he wanted the work to be entitled he drew on this experience and suggested The Postman Always Rings Twice.
[edit] William Marling explanation
William Marling, author of Hard-Boiled Fiction, writes that the title may come from one of the most sensational news stories of 1927 and 1928: the trial and execution of "Tyger Woman" Ruth Snyder and her lover Judd Gray for the murder of her husband Albert. The story was publicised by the east coast press, culminating with a photo of Ruth Snyder's electrocution being printed in the New York Daily News. Marling's full account is available at an external link; see below.
Snyder, an attractive thirty-one-year-old blonde, began an extramarital affair with Gray. In court, Gray asserted that Snyder insisted her husband was abusive, and that Gray then volunteered to kill him.
Marling notes that Cain's could have borrowed the title from a statement of Snyder's: she took out a life insurance policy on her husband, but ordered the postman to deliver the payment notices only to her. He was to ring the door bell twice as a signal.
[edit] Roy Hoopes explanation
However Roy Hoopes, in his biography of Cain (Cain: The Biography of James M. Cain), offers an entirely different explanation. According to Hoopes, Cain and his publisher had been going back and forth over a title, neither of them liking the other's suggestions, when Cain and screenwriter Vincent Lawrence finally came up with The Postman Always Rings Twice. Hoopes' account says that title was derived when Lawrence noted that amid the anxiety of awaiting news on a submitted manuscript, he would at times specifically try to avoid hearing the doorbell ring. However the tactic proved unsuccessful because the postman would always ring again to ensure he was heard. This caused Cain to think of an English or Irish saying which stated that a postman will always knock twice in announcing his presence. Lawrence and Cain then agreed that the postman ringing twice was metaphorically suited to Frank's situation at the end of the novel.
With the "postman" being God, or Fate, the "delivery" meant for Frank was his own death as just retribution for murdering Nick. Frank had missed the first "ring" when he initially got away with that killing. However, the postman rang again, and this time the ring was heard, when Frank was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora, and then sentenced to die for the crime.
In the 1946 film, Frank explicitly explains the title in the terms offered in the Hoopes biography of Cain.
[edit] Adaptations
The work has been adapted as a motion picture four times, once as an opera and once as a play.
[edit] 1939 French film
The French title is Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Turn), directed by Pierre Chenal and starring Michel Simon as Nick.
[edit] 1942 Italian film
A 1943 Italian film entitled Ossessione (Obsession), directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Clara Calamai and Massimo Girotti was based directly on Cain's story. Cain was not, however, given credit as the author, but due to the ongoing World War II, the copyright infingement case was not pursued.
[edit] 1946 film
The best known version of the movie is the 1946 film, which starred Lana Turner and John Garfield as the criminal couple. The film was voted #49 on the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Love Stories list.
[edit] 1981 film
The 1981 remake, based on a screenplay by David Mamet and directed by Bob Rafelson, starred Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange.
[edit] 1982 opera
In 1982, the novel was adapted into an opera with music by Stephen Paulus.
[edit] 2005 play
The play The Postman Always Rings Twice opened June 8, 2005 and closed September 3, 2005, at the Playhouse Theatre in London. The production was adapted by Andrew Rattenbury, directed by Lucy Bailey and starred Val Kilmer as Frank.[2]
