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| The Postman Always Rings Twice | |||
"With the opening shot of a sign announcing “Man Wanted”, and Turner’s first appearance heralded by a lipstick teasingly rolling across the floor to Garfield’s feet, no bed is needed to show what she is selling. A drifter passing through, paralysed by her black widow sting, Garfield becomes a man without a will, immobilised in the bleak little California backwater and gradually mired in a cesspit of lust, betrayal and murder that turns too late into love. The plot gathers slack latterly; but this is only a minor flaw in a film, more grey than noir, whose strength is that it is cast as a bleak memory in which, from the far side of paradise, a condemned man surveys the age-old trail through sex, love and disillusionment." – Time Out Film Guide "The first time John Garfield and we, the audience, see Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice she is exquisite looking, dressed all in white wearing a turban, a tight blouse with her bare midriff exposed, and a tight fitting pair of shorts containing the shapeliest pair of legs ever to stand in high heels. Garfield, kneeling down to pick up her lipstick case that rolled across the floor, is hooked from the moment he sees her… It remains today more than fifty years later one of the greatest screen entrances in film. For half the film, director Tay Garnett had Turner, as Cora Smith, wear white, her turban, those fantastic short shorts, her jacket, her waitress outfit even her hair is platinum blonde. Only after plans are set in motion to kill her husband do Cora’s outfits all turn to black, visually symbolizing the good and evil of her character." – John Greco, Twenty-four Frames "The problem with Garnett’s Postman is that it presents a movement away from both the naturalism of its literary source and the noir characteristics of the adaptations of Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce.… effected largely through repressing the instinctual sexuality of Cain’s novel and through presenting the relationship between the wife and lover in an essentially romantic or idealistic manner. Adultery and murder are apparently more acceptable to the censors if these acts are committed by characters who are basically wholesome and innocent.… Frank and Cora are vulnerable because they are the kind of ordinary characters one finds in naturalist fiction. They are amateurs who act out of desperation and are consequently doomed to fail. For example, the plan for the first murder attempt is inspired by Cora’s reading a magazine article on accidents in the home. Ironically, this attempt fails because a stray cat climbs up a ladder.… Garnett’s Postman does manage to preserve Cain’s cynical view of the criminal justice system. James Agee praises the film for representing “the Law as an invincibly corrupt and terrifying force before which mere victims, whether innocent or guilty, can only stand helpless and aghast”. This attitude toward the law would become a pervasive theme in 1940s noir." – Christopher Orr, Film Criticism |
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| USA 1946 | |||
Director: Tay Garnett With: Lana Turner (Cora Smith), John Garfield (Frank Chambers), Cecil Kellaway (Nick Smith), Hume Cronyn (Arthur Keats), Leon Ames (Kyle Sackett), Audrey Totter (Madge Gorland), Alan Reed (Ezra Liam Kennedy), Jeff York (Blair) 113 mins, 35mm (1,37:1), black and white PG adult themes West Melton & Districts Film Society |
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