The Postman Always Rings Twice

Book to Movie: A pale copy

Widely considered one of the foundational movies of Film Noir, 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice helped to kick off the "Golden Age" of the genre with a three million dollar plus box office. Any number of films in this category imitated the formula of the star crossed lovers involved in murder over the following years, with varied levels of success.

The Postman Always Rings Twice itself followed in the footsteps of the success of Double Indemnity, released a few years earlier. Both films were adaptations of novels from hard-boiled icon James M. Cain; in fact, Double Indemnity was a sort of re-write of Postman by the author.

Cain's Postman was a controversial hit when first published in 1934. The explicit sex (for its time) and morally bankrupt characters of Frank and Cora shocked; Cain's machine gun prose propelled the narrative forward in a rush of sensation. I can attest that it is a hot, quick read.

In the book, Frank is a restless, amoral hobo. The opening line, "They threw me off the haytruck about noon," may never be surpassed. By the end of Chapter Two, he and Cora have already screwed, in a violent encounter where: "I bit her. I sunk my teeth into her lips so deep I could feel the blood spurt into my mouth. It was running down her neck when I carried her upstairs."

The pair conspire to murder Cora's husband, Nick, a "greasy Greek." She expresses revulsion at having to allow him to touch her and fears getting pregnant and having to give birth to more "greasy Greeks." For Frank, his motivations are simple, unrestricted sexual access to Cora and a share of Nick's life insurance policy money.

The murder goes off but fails to fool the local prosecutor, who charges Cora with murder after coercing Nick to sign a statement against her. She responds with her own confession, but is tricked into giving it to her own lawyer's stenographer, who uses it to manipulate the prosecutor into reducing the charges and letting her off with probation.

Having gotten away with Nick's murder, initially the pair go back to running the gas station/restaurant together. But restless Frank runs off to have an affair in Mexico, returning to find that Cora is pregnant. They reconcile and marry, but when Cora dies in a car accident, the prosecutor is able to convict Frank of her murder and he ends the book on Death Row.

MGM, the epitome of Hollywood class, bought the book rights almost immediately. Unfortunately, 1934 was the same year when the Hollywood Production Code tightened up, ending the so-called Pre-Code era of wild violence and steamy sex. MGM had to wait another ten years to make a try at adapting the book as it was considerable unfilmable by the Code Office.

In 1944, Production Code head Joseph Breen, in spite of still smarting from the backlash against Double Indemnity, was willing to work with MGM to get the film passed, most likely because the studio's reputation as a purveyor of high toned and sophisticated movies gave him hope they would respond to his concerns. Not surprisingly, they did. He insisted they reduce or soften all the scenes of Frank and Cora kissing or embracing; the screenwriters carefully neutered the characters before the film ever got to production. Studio head Louis B. Meyer made his disgust and dislike of the novel clear, so director Tay Garnett, a studio journeyman, after briefly considering injecting a little innuendo into the scenario, quickly discarded that idea.

The resulting film reflects that process. While it is remarkably true to the plot of the book, the movie version of Postman is bleached out and diluted. The classic shadows and expressionistic lighting of the classic noir style is missing here, replaced by brightly lit California locales. Frank goes from a sociopathic drifter to a footloose philosopher. Cora (played by lightweight actress Lana Turner) wears nothing but white for most of the movie and instead of a sexually frustrated housewife, she's just a petulant pretty girl. Replacing the "greasy Greek" Nick of the novel with the affable Cecil Kellaway strips away the implied sexual revulsion that motivates Cora in the book.

Sex is barely insinuated. In a weak attempt at symbolism, the lovers go swimming a few times to let the audience know they are screwing. But there are no scenes of rolling around on the beach passionately, or grabbing each other in a horny clinch while raging surf boils around them. They just go swimming.

Compare this to Double Indemnity, released just two years earlier. Here, the screen crackles with sexual tension. The dialog between stars Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwyck sizzles:

Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.

Walter: How fast was I going, officer?

Phyllis: I'd say around ninety.

Walter: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.

Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.

Walter: Suppose it doesn't take.

Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.

Walter: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.

Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.

German emigre director Billy Wilder drenches the scenes with shadow and sublimated meaning, adding visual cues to the hard-boiled dialog to amp up the heat. Unlike Postman, which gives only the barest clues of impropriety to its audience, Double Indemnity revels in sin.

Other than the presence of movie legend Wilder, the main difference between the two James M. Cain adaptations (both featuring very similar plots) is the studios that produced them. Double Indemnity's Paramount produced early noirs like The Glass Key, Ministry of Fear, and The Lost Weekend. They were a solidly middlebrow studio, producing lower budgeted features and popular series like the Henry Aldrich comedies and Hopalong Cassidy westerns. MGM, on the other hand, represented the top of the food chain, specializing in prestige literary adaptations and lavish musicals.

You get the impression that MGM approached production of Postman as a distasteful, but necessary task. The original novel wasn't just some obscure pulp product, it was a highly acclaimed debut novel by a writer who drew comparisons to Hemingway. It was also hugely popular and remained so well into World War Two. It was even printed in a serviceman's version and distributed to the troops.

I don't believe that The Postman Always Rings Twice belongs on any list of top Film Noirs. If anything, it should serve as an example of what happened when a classic hard-boiled text fell into the wrong hands.

If you would like a fun ripoff of James M. Cain sex and murder stories, check out Apology for Murder, produced by PRC Studios immediately following the release of Double Indemnity. It was originally going to be titled Single Identity, but a lawsuit from Paramount halted that. It features Ann Savage in the same year she starred as the memorable femme fatale of the classic Detour. And yes, that's Leave it Beaver's Hugh Beaumont as the chump who swings the blackjack.