The Postman Always Rings Twice
by Tay Garnett
List Price:
Our Price: $8.82
You Save: $11.11 (56%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.41 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, John Garfield, Lana TurnerDirector: Tay Garnett
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 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: A woman can't live without love
Summary: 5 Stars
Beautiful woman and handsome drifter find the road to love paved with deception and littered with corpses.
Lana Turner plays Cora Smith and John Garfield plays drifter Frank Chambers. Cecil Kellaway plays Nick Smith, Cora's husband and, after they burn the `Man Wanted' sign that stood in front of his roadside diner, Chambers' employer. Kellaway's Nick Smith is, for all intents a eunuch, a pleasant old souse who drinks a bit too much, strums a drunken guitar and insists that Cora and Chambers dance while he stands in the shadows, joyously and obliviously accompanying the music coming out of the juke box while they rumba in the flashing neon night.
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE is indeed, as advertised, about sex and murder. It's also about people making really dumb choices and Fate kicking them down the hill forever after. The primal dumb choice being Cora's marriage to Nick - a marriage, we're told, that rescued her from the wolves who'd been snapping at her heels since she was fourteen. Cora and Nick's marriage-of-convenience may have protected her from the threat out there, but it left her defenseless against the threat in here. You didn't marry him for love, Chamber tells her before the embers of the `Man Wanted' sign had cooled to ash. He told you it would come, and it never did.
You can't live without love, Cora smolders later on in the movie. At least a woman can't. Director Tay Garnett and cinematographer Sidney Wagner catch the simmering sizzle between Turner and Garfield - whether following the track of the lipstick to the first shot of Turner, following Garfield's point-of-view and pausing to linger on her legs before tracking up to her face, or those early and breathless conversations.
TPART'S frank (not graphic) depiction of sexual relationships was ahead of its time. MGM didn't usually soil the hem of her robes with this type of material, but when pressed it could sling the sexual innuendoes and double entendres with the best of her earthier sister studios, Warner Bros. and RKO, and Poverty Row hash-houses like the seamy and seedy PRC. Anyway, MGM threw good money at this one, and it sure looks good.
Cora and Chambers dally, and to satisfy the Code they pay the wages of sin, but the movie paints them both as more victims of fate than corrupt criminals. More than the frank dialogues and the lingering glances, I think, the censors must have been concerned about the sympathetic portrayal of both the Turner and the Garfield character. There's also an ambiguous take on the justice system. Leon Ames plays the Laddie-boy scrupulous district attorney and Hume Cronyn the unscrupulous defense attorney manipulating a legal system that seems more concerned with expediency than with justice.
Lana Turner is a dish and quite good as the sensual young wife. I've recently seen Garfield in two films - They Made Me a Criminal and Body and Soul. In those two Garfield reminded me of a young Jimmy Cagney. His performances were brash and extroverted, charged with 1000-watts of energy with personalities that prowled and leapt off his skin. In TPART Garfield cages that energy. Frank Chambers lives below the surface, and Garfield reveals his character with a subtle grace I wasn't prepared for. When Chambers first sees Cora you see that she literally takes his breath away. Later, when he's forced to share a courthouse anteroom with Cora, the haunted and embarrassed glances he quietly steals reveal the lingering pain of their ruptured romance. It's a bravura performance, and my favorite of his - so far.
Also on the disk is the enjoyable 60-minute documentary, The John Garfield Story, narrated by Garfield's daughter Julie. It's a pretty fair rundown of his legitimate theater and movie career, his problems with HUAC and his early death. Best of all is when movie actors like Lee Grant, Joanne Woodward, Richard Dreyfuss, and others talk about Garfield's acting technique. Actors talking about acting is always interesting.
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RING TWICE is an excellent movie, one of the best in the genre. Very highly recommended.
Summary of The Postman Always Rings Twice
POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, THE (1946 - DVD MovieSimilar DVD Movies
In a Lonely PlaceSony; Release date: 2003-03-18; DVD
Best price: $7.49
Price in other shops:
Sorry, Wrong NumberPARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2002-05-28; DVD
Best price: $34.54
GildaHAYWORTH,RITA; Release date: 2000-11-07; DVD
Best price: $6.84
Price in other shops:
The Big SleepWarner Brothers; Release date: 2006-07-25; DVD
Best price: $9.58
Price in other shops:
Dial M for MurderWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-09-07; DVD
Best price: $5.80
Price in other shops:
Touch Of Evil (50th Anniversary Edition)Universal Studios; Release date: 2008-10-07; DVD
Best price: $14.91
Price in other shops:
Cape FearUniversal; Release date: 2001-09-18; DVD
Best price: $7.82
Price in other shops:
Mildred Pierce (Keepcase)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2005-06-14; DVD
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops:
Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)NBC Universal; Release date: 2006-08-22; DVD
Best price: $15.14
Price in other shops:
The Postman Always Rings TwiceNICHOLSON,JACK; Release date: 1997-08-20; DVD
Best price: $2.79
Price in other shops: