The Postman Always Rings Twice
by Tay Garnett, David Heeley
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, John Garfield, Lana Turner, Leon AmesDirector: David Heeley, Tay Garnett
Brand: CRONYN,HUME
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 113 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-01-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of The Postman Always Rings Twice
Movie Review: Love and lust, love and murder. James M. Cain, John Garfield and Lana Turner make a fine, tawdry story
Summary: 5 Stars
With platinum hair, dark eyelashes and pouty lips, Cora Smith is a slut to dream about. Or maybe she's just an ambitious, dissatisfied wife, married to Nick, the fat older owner of a greasy roadside diner. Or maybe all those banked flames of hers are getting too much fresh oxygen from tough, dumb Frank Chambers, who drifts into her life and watches Cora's lipstick roll across the diner floor to his feet. It doesn't matter. Fate is walking slowly down the highway toward Cora and Frank. Nothing is going to change what passion and murder will bring them, and the twist of ironic justice sets them up for a great ending.
There are so many good things about this movie. The four obvious ones start with the story by James M. Cain. We're talking hot lust, dumb love and the kind of ironic inevitability that always comes in first-class noirs. There's the cynical display of the legal process, not quite corrupt -- what does justice have to do with the law? -- but rewarding to those who can best manipulate it. There's Lana Turner as Cora, no actress, but who makes believable the kind of blood-thumping single-mindedness that can turn a not-so-smart drifter into a willing participant in murder. She can offer sex and she can offer love, and neither we nor Frank is sure which has any truth. Frank will settle for the sex, but then he realizes with Cora he might have both. And there's John Garfield as Frank in a perfect performance as this flawed, gullible sap who thinks he can commit murder and call it love. All he wants is Cora on a hot night. He winds up wanting Cora for eternity, and is comforted that she'll be there for him.
Do many people remember John Garfield now? He made a name on Broadway and an even bigger name in Hollywood. He was a committed liberal who was ruined during the Commie witch-hunts. By the late Forties he couldn't find work in Hollywood. All those studio heads who made money from his films didn't want to touch him. He was no Communist, just too liberal for the frightened suits. Garfield's film career was in tatters. He was a first-class actor but naive when it came to politics. He couldn't understand what was happening to him. He died of heart failure in New York in 1952 while trying to reestablish himself on the stage. He was 39. To see just how good he was, watch his reaction shots in this movie...when he first sees Cora...when he has to get in the car next to Nick right after he's smashed Nick's skull with a bottle...when at the end of the movie he reads Cora's note and listens to the DA. Garfield's last major movie was Force of Evil in 1948. These two films demonstrate just how powerful a screen actor John Garfield was and how much this nation lost through expediency and intimidation.
The DVD transfer is just fine. Among the extras is a fine documentary about Garfield.
Summary of The Postman Always Rings Twice
A hitchiker falls in love with a cafe waitress. Together they murder her husband and then their troubles begin.Genre: Suspense
Rating: NR
Release Date: 6-JAN-2004
Media Type: DVD
Even under the heavy censorship of 1946 Hollywood, Lana Turner and John Garfield's libidinous desires burn up the screen in Tay Garnett's adaptation of James M. Cain's torrid crime melodrama. Platinum blond Turner is Cora, a restless sexpot stuck in a roadside diner married to mundane middle-aged fry cook Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway) when handsome drifter Frank (Garfield) blows her way. It's lust at first sight, a rapacious desire that neither can break off, and before long they're plotting his demise--but in the wicked world of Cain nothing is that easy. Garnett's visual approach is subdued compared to the more expressionistic film noir of the period, but he's at no loss when he films the luminous Turner in her milky-white wardrobe. She radiates repressed sexuality and uncontrollable passion while Garfield's smart-talking loner Frank mixes street-smart swagger and scrappy toughness with vulnerability and sincere intensity. Costar Hume Cronyn cuts a cold, calculating figure as their conniving lawyer, a chilly character that only increases our feelings for the murderous couple, victims of an all consuming amour fou that drives their passions to extremes. --Sean Axmaker
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