Movie Review – The Postman Always Rings Twice

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Written by Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch
Directed by Tay Garnett

The Postman Always Rings Twice is one of the great archetypal noir stories. It shares some elements with the equally iconic Double Indemnity. However, this film’s setting and the intentionally tortuous way it lets its characters double back on their decisions turns it into a knife that slowly drives its way between our ribs. Both were based on the novels of James M. Cain, who also wrote Mildred Pierce. He came from journalism and penned many editorials, which he would later explain were written as a character rather than himself. That first-person confessional style became a crucial part of his novels, the noir protagonist who has come to the end of his rope and reflects on the events that got him to this tragic point. The Postman Always Rings Twice serves as Cain’s grandest statement in the noir genre, pulling together all his strengths to deliver a harrowing story.

Frank (John Garfield) is a drifter who ends up at the Twin Oaks diner/service station on a dusty stretch of highway just outside Los Angeles. The owner is Nick (Cecil Kellaway), a friendly old man with a much younger wife, Cora (Lana Turner). Cora has become tired of life in the middle of nowhere and hates working at the diner. She starts an affair with Frank shortly after Nick gives him a job. They plot to run away together, but Cora realizes if she divorces Nick, she will end up with nothing. She and Frank will need money to get started. A murder plot emerges with a way to make it look like an accident in the bathtub. But it could never be that simple, and complication after complication arises. Frank tries to escape but finds himself lured back, unable to shake Cora from his thoughts and eventually joining her in this murderous effort.

The femme fatale is one of the most prominent noir elements, and Lana Turner plays one of the best in this film. What I appreciated most was that she wasn’t unsympathetic. Compared to someone like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, there’s a certain sunniness to Turner. She and Nick do bad things, but they often feel caught in a whirlpool, partially of their own making but also due to their circumstances. This is something I love about noir the most: the way life is framed as inevitably tragic. It makes sense because, despite all our plans for ourselves, one day, we will die, possibly unexpectedly. It can also be seen as unreliable narration, someone who has done horrible things to another person trying to spin a version of events where they were “just doing their best.” Even though it is very stylized, noir feels like one of our most human storytelling genres. 

Turner delivers a fantastic performance. I have only seen her in two other films: Imitation of Life and The Bad and the Beautiful. Because of this, I didn’t know what she was like as an actress early in her career. I knew she became famous as a pin-up model, and coming from that field, it could go either way. A performer can look great on camera but be a dud as an actor. However, Turner is incredible as Cora; she ultimately carries The Postman, exuding charisma and personality. While Frank comes across as your typical guy getting caught up in horniness, Cora is a complicated person. She wants so much that she compromises at a point in her life by marrying Nick. Cora couldn’t imagine any better prospect coming along in her life. Now, the veil has lifted, and she can conceive of a better life. Yet, she can’t bear starting over from the bottom again. That desperation fuels her plot to kill a man she once loved.

Her turn in the film’s latter half is often read as a revelation of her true self. I saw more that Cora succumbed to all the worst parts of who she could be; the goodness at the start has burned away. It’s like watching someone become jaded after a lifetime of ruin & failure. The ground becomes slicked with oil, and can’t get anywhere, so you become nastier and more vicious. By the end, Cora and Nick have become pawns in a game between the district attorney and her lawyer, who don’t really seem to give a damn about the people they are talking about. The story says that so many people we hand power to in our society see themselves in a game where we are inconsequential.

The Postman can also be read as a profoundly cynical view of love in the modern world. Cain posits that we love people to get something from them; we tell ourselves lies to not confront the fact that these relationships are transactional. I don’t buy that all love is that way, but I certainly think some people have become increasingly like this the more capitalism holds back the ability to make something meaningful of your life simply because of where you were born.

Turner was a child of the Great Depression; she would have been seven years old when it began. Her family moved around Idaho, trying to find work where they could for as long as it would last. Her father was bludgeoned to death after winning big in a craps game; Turner was only nine years old. She would cite that event as forcing her to grow up faster than she would have liked. Catholicism provided some relief as Turner got older; she even toyed with becoming a nun. 

Turner’s discovery as an actress has become one of those oft-told legends, discovered at sixteen while skipping school at a malt shop. With the recent avalanche of #metoo stories that have come out over the last few years, I don’t think it takes much of a stretch of the imagination to know what a talent agent was up to when he asked a sixteen-year-old child if she wanted to be in movies. Her nickname early on in the pictures was “The Sweater Girl” due to how the wardrobe people would dress her to accentuate her bustline. This focus on her body caused Turner a tremendous amount of anxiety; she felt incredibly self-conscious.

I think Turner’s background made her performance in The Postman much stronger. She understood Cora’s desperation, how this woman knew her body was the only thing most men put value in. You can also see the anger over the idea of being sent back into the dirt without a dime to her name, that she refused to have to go through the torture of climbing back up again. Life for Turner would never be completely devoid of its tragedy; eleven years later, an abusive relationship with mobster Johnny Stompanato saw him drug the actress and take nude photos, which he later used to blackmail her and keep Turner under his thumb. The mobster would end up stabbed to death in her home, Turner’s teenage daughter taking the rap. It’s one thing to play a character in a noir, but for your life to play out like one sounds hellish.