Part of this is attributable to noir’s incipiency, but another part is deference to Cain and his novel’s bestselling status, one of three to be adapted into early noirs, along with Mildred Pierce and Double Indemnity. This ending is also dictated by Cain’s novel, as is much of the film’s over-stuffed plot, more allegiant to its literary source than later postwar noirs, which would become more specifically cinematic. Successful the second time around, at one hour into the film, the lovers spend the rest of it turning against, and then towards, each other-lather, rinse, repeat-until Karma and The Law punish them both, per the strictures of the Production Code. Ambitious to “amount to something” and an increasingly skilled deceiver, she talks Frank into conspiring to murder Nick. Trapped herself in marriage to a much older man, the Twin Oaks’ owner Nick (Cecil Kellaway), who keeps her working in the kitchen and fails to satisfy her sexually and financially, Cora will lure Frank into setting her free, regardless of the cost to him. No innocent bride, Cora is white-hot, like the electric current that kills the cat dumb enough to walk into a fuse box. Like the sunny setting, the total whiteness of Cora’s hair and wardrobe (Garnett’s inspired brainchild) is a ruse. Her unnatural phallic power is symbolized in lipsticks (intentionally dropped) and cigarettes (self-lit), her unnatural narcissism-at odds with gender norms dictating female subordination of will-symbolized by the mirror she uses to gaze at her own weaponized attractiveness. A restless wanderer, Frank is about to be trapped, which we are told-in typical noir fashion-by so many striated shadows and by the entrance of Cora Smith (Turner), who grabs Frank by the gaze (with a typical POV shot of her high-heeled gams) and never lets go.Ĭora is a noir “spider woman” par excellence (to use Janey Place’s term). For good measure, director Tay Garnett also gives us a “Man Wanted” sign, literally advertising a job at the Twin Oaks filling station/lunch counter and figuratively forecasting Frank’s destiny, as does the film’s foreboding if cryptic title.
The film opens on Frank Chambers (Garfield), his fate overdetermined by that surname, his confessional voiceover, and the presence of The Law – in the form of a district attorney, with whom Frank has hitched a ride, and a motorcycle cop (both will reappear later). The Postman Always Rings Twice is representative early noir despite the deceptive brightness of its setting: the hill country outside Los Angeles. Describing his concussion, he might as well be describing the advent of noir, with its profound cynicism about the “American Way,” so ballyhooed during the war. “Everything went dark,” says the lovers’ attempted murder victim. (According to Garfield biographer Robert Nott, the stars’ onscreen affair was consummated off-screen too.) There is a heady mix of tragic fatalism, moral relativism, and social criticism, the suggestion that capitalism perverts human souls. Played at high steam by John Garfield and Lana Turner, noir icons at their most iconic, the anti-hero and the femme fatale sizzle, their movie-star magnetism set off in high-styled black and white cinematography.ĭriven inexorably by lust and greed, their criminality is harshly disciplined, but only after being exploited for 100 minutes of pleasure, in which the spectator thrills with their desires and the suspense of whether they’ll consummate their affair and murderous intentions, and whether they’ll be caught when they do.
Cain’s 1934 crime novel of the same title (one of seven!) renders the corrupted hearts of its protagonists as blackly as contemporary industry censorship allowed. To understand the dynamics of early postwar film noir, you can do worse than to start with MGM’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), which is celebrating its 75 th anniversary – and is best enjoyed in the heat of summer per its original release.
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