BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

frankwiener Spoilers ahead! I admit that I don't understand the title. As much as I tried and tried, I finally gave up. I do understand that Frank (John Garfield) and Cora (Lana Turner) attempted to commit one crime and succeeded at another without being convicted but then ironically "paid" for their crimes unexpectedly and accidentally, but what does that have to do with a postman ringing twice? My postman doesn't even ring once, and almost everything that he delivers is junk mail that gets immediately recycled before I open it. Maybe the original title "Bar BQ" should have stuck. Who knows?Aside from what I have read about the personal relationship between the two leads, which was confusing by itself, I didn't think that they were very good. I didn't believe that Garfield was emotionally involved in his part, and, sorry folks, I never appreciated Lana Turner as an actor. What was her speech affectation all about? Did you catch that? She sounded as if she had just arrived on the set from major dental surgery, and I found it very irritating. I'm glad that novelist James Cain believed that she was the perfect Cora. In an odd way, perhaps he is right because I didn't like the character that she played either.Although the film interested me at the beginning, my involvement faded fast. Cora's relationship with Nick (Cecil Kellaway) was totally unrealistic to me, and Nick's character completely annoyed me. Much of the time, I felt that I was watching a parody or a spoof of an actual drama because so many of the lines seemed so ridiculous to me. I believed that the cast felt that they were as ludicrous as I found them and delivered them accordingly with very little effort or interest. All of a sudden, out of the blue, Nick announces that he and Cora are departing for the wilds of northern Canada to care for his long lost sister. Can you picture Cora settling permanently not just in Regina or Saskatoon but in northern Sasketchewan? I could tell immediately that everyone was in trouble from that moment forward. The stage was set!I like Leon Ames alright, but if he said "laddy" just one more time I was going to smash my pc to the ceramic floor into a thousand pieces. Somehow, I managed to control myself in the "nick" of time. It just wouldn't have been worth the loss.

dougdoepke Plot—A penniless drifter stops by a roadside diner, and takes a job there after getting a load of the owner's sexy wife. Their relationship grows, while the middle-aged husband suspects nothing. Eventually, the two run away together, only to have the wife suddenly return, unable to leave the comforts of a successful business. But the two are unable to stay apart causing the drifter to return. Finally, the lovers decide to fake an accident killing the inconvenient husband. That way they can be together with all the comforts of the popular diner. That is, if things work out according to plan.Postman is indeed first-rate noir, a genuine classic. Both Turner and Garfield deserved at least Oscar nomination, along with the shifty-eyed Hume Cronyn in a supporting role. In fact their casting was really inspired. Apparently, the chemistry between the two leads smoldered off- screen (IMDB) as well as on.In her angelic white outfits (a wardrobe note of irony), Turner's spider woman reaches iconic status. In fact, I can't help noting her darn near perfect complexion throughout, smooth as silk and a perfect mask. Garfield's streetwise drifter, Chambers, is also superbly realized. Probably, Chambers should have followed his instincts instead of his libido after that first iconic meeting. For it turns out that it is Cora who can't give up the seductions of a comfortable life-style even for his love. It also turns out that neither lover has murder in his or her heart, but together they're trapped. She's trapped by desire for comfort and his smarts; he's struck blind by desire for her short shorts. I guess their mutual attraction is what the French might call "amour fou" (crazy love). In this case, however, love doesn't conquer all until it's too late. Perhaps then it is fate that their long, crooked path should end in tragedy.At the same time, I doubt the legal profession was very happy with the movie's behind-the- scenes legal maneuvering. Cora's attorney Keats (Cronyn) manages to manipulate the law and DA Sackett (Ames) into freeing her, despite her guilt. In short, guilt and innocence is shown as secondary to bargaining outside the courtroom between attorneys. Juries, it seems, don't really matter. All in all, I take the movie's last scenes as a sop to the censors. In fact, the screenplay pushes the 1940's envelope with infidelity, wedlock pregnancy, and Turner's unabashed allure. So some kind of righteous redress was, I guess, required by the watchdogs. Still, the sexual subtext is too strong to override with a last minute gesture to convention. It's probably also relevant that a symbolic swim in the cleansing ocean should prepare the couple for what amounts to after-life redemption. While In that same memorable scene, Cora confesses her sins, even as she struggles atop a black sea of eternity. Thus the powerful symbolism of that dark sea and the plot's underlying fatalism are compromised by what amounts to a last minute appeal to religious convention.I do have a couple gripes. Are we really expected to believe that Cora's middle-aged husband and diner owner, Nick (Kellaway), suspects nothing between his sexy wife and the studly Chambers. And that's even after he stumbles on them in suggestive settings. Now, I'm willing to suspend disbelief during a movie, but only up to a point. In a serious film like this, the point was quickly and unhappily surpassed. Some hint that maybe Nick knows, but puts up with it for bigger reasons, would have helped. The other gripe is a minor one but worth mentioning in a quality film. And that's how easily Chambers beats up the burly Kennedy. Come on director Garnett, that's about as plausible as barroom brawl in a kid's matinée.All in all, Postman's a true noir classic, one of the few to justify a two-hour runtime. Too bad the film and its stars were overlooked Oscar-wise. But then, I guess the lurid content upset too many important people. But it's still a good gripping film to catch up with, that is, if you haven't already.

elvircorhodzic I think it is totally unnecessary polemics about the moral character of this film. POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE is tremendously tense and dramatic film, helped with great atmosphere and very good acting. Motives of adultery and crimes of passion are certainly the most thematically processed, but do not compromise the spirit of the novel on which the movie is based.In fact, nothing could be more sensational, besides the beautiful legs. A passionate story of an emotionally torn characters. Love, passion, murder and sentences. I am delighted with the atmosphere that prevails in and around the small diner. Everything important happens at night, of course, is no accident.The tension and passion grow in intervals. The climax is the murder. The violence in the film occurs suddenly and rapidly. John Garfield as Frank Chambers is a raw young rogue who wanders aimlessly and eventually falls into the trap. Garfield maintains a rhythm from start to finish. I think how he is naive character, actually know that he is in love, and vice versa.Lana Turner as Cora Smith It is quite good as frustrated beautiful woman who wants out of life to do something. Crime is not entirely her choice. She was more scared and hurt than determined. She was an ordinary woman trapped in a passion. No way femme fatale.It is obvious that crime does not pay. However, I see this as melodramatic demonstration where emotionally weak and clumsy people destroy themselves in their own sin.

Mr_Ectoplasma This film noir has Lana Turner as Cora, the naive wife of a much older roadside café owner, clashing with Frank, a drifter, played by John Garfield, who rolls into town and gets a job at the diner. The two begin a flaming romance and eventually plot the murder of Cora's husband, with insurmountable ramifications.Although not perhaps the most realistic or gritty noir, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" is memorable for two reasons: first, because it was perhaps the first instance in which MGM sweater girl Lana Turner was truly able to cut her teeth; and second, its atmosphere is explosively provocative and quietly dazzling.Shadowy and slow burning, the film moves between worlds as Cora and Frank become a singular threat to Nick, and their fate unravels and splinters into a dramatic finale. Based on the book by James N. Cain (who also wrote "Double Indemnity"), "The Postman Always Rings Twice" is less talkier than a lot of noir, but constructs a languid atmosphere and is rife with dramatic (if not always entirely believable) characters. Turner lights up the screen as perhaps the most glamorous waitress of all time, and John Garfield has a great chemistry with her on screen. Moody cinematography bolstered with closeups and subtle stylistic touches accentuate the general mood of the picture.Overall, this is a fantastic noir, but it's not Mickey Spillane or anything of the like; it's a bit more leisurely and the stakes don't feel as grave as they do in other noir of the era, but the performances and dreary atmosphere that lurks in every scene make this worth the while. Lana Turner's vixenish take as the naive-turned-evil waitress is worth the price of admission alone. I'd describe the film as a weird collision of major studio gloss with the gritty tropes of noir, which, while some people may not find it that appealing, I personally enjoyed the dichotomy. 8/10.