Rating: 
Summary: The REAL version
Review: Yes, this IS the best filmed version of James Cain's classic The Postman Always Rings Twice. The first version, with Lana Turner and John Garfield, was much too tame and polite. When the husband gets bumped off, it's a matter of fact event, as though the two lovers were going out shopping for wallpaper. And the eroticism of the story is just not there at all--nor is the desperation.The 1981 version with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange certainly showed off the sexuality of the story, but was much too vapid and superficial; the director, Bob Rafelson, had apparently decided that the story's core was its sexuality and so focused on that at the expense of pretty much everything else. The desperation that should be brimming over in the development of the story is really not in evidence in this version--the two good looking leads basically just want to have sex a lot and that's what they do. They yell and scream, too, but it's the sex that everyone remembers in this film. But Luchino Visconti, in this 1943 Italian neo-realist noir, gets it just right. Eroticism is here, but so is desperation, which is just as important, if not more so. This comes through so well because the setting is a small Italian village where there are no really wealthy folks. Everybody's engaged in his or her small activities to get by. The one exception is Giovanna's paunchy husband Giuseppe who's squirreled away a lot of dough. And the desperation comes through in the doomed couple--Gino the drifter and Giovanna, the wife. Gino's labile temper and emotionality are well portrayed by Massimo Girotti, and Clara Calamai balances Girotti's performance with her depiction of Giovanna as a wife desperate to be free of her gross (to her) husband. The story introduces characters and situations that epitomize Italian culture--an opera singing contest, for example--but follows Cain's story closely enough to make this an early film noir, albeit a non-American one. Even above eroticism and desperation, the overriding tone of this story is irony--unquestionably missing in the first American version, and only half-heartedly on display in the 1981 version. But irony is the soul of this film. The tragic ending is the most bitterly ironic scene here, and it is done simply--thus, very effectively. Visconti was intelligent enough to see that simplicity, combined with an emphasis on strong emotionality, would carry this ironic story through to its supremely ironic ending. This is a surprisingly strong film for a first directorial effort, and one that should be remembered for some time to come. It's interesting that a non-American director made the best cinematic version of a seminal American noir story.
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