The Postman Always Rings Twice

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Film Noir
Review: This is the best and original version of The Postman Always Rings Twice and it captures your attention from the opening scene when Frank Chambers narrates how he came to The Twin Oaks and met up with Cora and Nick Smith. From the moment Cora intentionally drops the cap off her lipstick tube(so that it rolls to Frank and he has to pick it up)they are both hot for each other and Cora is anxious to do away with her much older, boring cheapskate husband. The movie keeps your interest throughout and you wish they still made films like this again. Highly recommended for all mystery movie buffs and collectors of real Hollywood films.

Rating:
Summary: Star-crossed lovers
Review: Torrid, taut film-noir about a pair of illicit young lovers whose explosive passion leads them toward inevitable doom. John Garfield and Lana Turner are white-hot as the ill-fated lovers desperate to be together but destined to be apart. Dark, brooding, unconventionally handsome Garfield stars as Frank Chambers, a smoldering and streetwise drifter who soon finds himself in an untenable situation from which there is no turning back when he is drawn to a Lana Turner's sensuous, seductive Cora Smith, an ambitious and restless young wife eager to escape her dreary hashhouse existence and boring old husband. Inevitably, their insecurities and jealousies eat away at them and results in fatal consequences for both. Also terrific is Hume Cronyn in a disturbing performance as a chilling and razor-sharp defense attorney, and Cecil Kellaway as Cora's middle-aged husband Nick, an amiable but strangely ignorant man who incredibly doesn't suspect anything. One thought--I thought one of the weak spots in the story was how Kellaway/Nick was alarmingly unsuspecting. After all, in real life what middle-aged husband with a sexpot wife would hire a sexy, intense man to work for him? Nevertheless, Kellaway gives a sincere performance that is totally convincing. Watch for Audrey Totter in a small but attention-getting role as a cutie looking to get picked up. An effective rendering of the Cain novella on which it's based since it captures the essense of the story, although due to censorship at the time it's more sanitized and "Hollywood-ized." Arguably better is "Ossessione," the earthy, gritty Italian version made a few years before.

Rating:
Summary: best movie about lust ever made
Review: tremendous movie. with all the heavy censorship of the time, the feeling really comes through. garfield and turner were never better. great twists and turns throughout the movie. bob sacamento was in this exact same situation but managed to escape scott free.

Rating:
Summary: Flat, watered-down version of a vicious little story
Review: Wow. Garfield STINKS, and there is but not a thread of sexual tension in the cinematic rendering of this tale. Cain makes the point repeatedly in the book about the whole affair being a dirty, desperate, yet all too enjoyable act of adultery -- and in the movie it's............nonexistent! Lana Turner is all wrong, from her artificial sentimentality (which doesn't even work if she's trying to "reveal" that it's somewhat fake) to her "irate" scenes. Very disappointed. Noir films are supposed to be dark and unrelenting portrayals of human nature. At this, The Postman Always Rings Twice utterly fails.