The Postman Always Rings Twice
Short description
Frank Chambers drifts through California looking for work during the Depression and stops at a roadside diner and gas station. The owner, Nick Smith, offers him a job, and Frank takes it after meeting Nick's much younger wife, Cora. The attraction between Frank and Cora is immediate, and they soon begin an affair. Unhappy in her marriage and short of money, Cora wants a way out, and she presses Frank to help her get rid of Nick so they can start over together. Their plan draws the attention of the authorities, a district attorney and an insurance investigator among them, and the couple's loyalty to each other comes under strain.
Tay Garnett directed this 1946 adaptation of James M. Cain's novel, working from a screenplay by Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch, with Carey Wilson producing for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film stars John Garfield as Frank and Lana Turner as Cora, alongside Cecil Kellaway as Nick, Hume Cronyn as Arthur Keats, Leon Ames as Kyle Sackett and Audrey Totter as Madge Gorland. It was Garnett's fourth film in a directing run that began with China Seas and would continue with Cause for Alarm!, and it sits between Seven Sinners and that later title.
Made for about two million dollars, the film returned roughly five million worldwide. It holds a 7.4 rating on IMDb from over twenty-two thousand votes and a 7.1 on TMDB, while critics rated it 8 out of 10 across 28 reviews, a stronger critical than audience showing.
What's left behind the scenes
- The novel of the same name (1934) by James M. Cain (1892-1977), on which the film was based, was considered so explicit by the standards of the 1940s that it took 12 years to write a screenplay that would conform to the highly moral Hays Code (the unofficial standard of film censorship of that era).
- Director Tay Garnett (1894-1977) wanted to shoot as much as possible on location, which was rare for films from MGM at the time. For the filming of love scenes on the shore, he took the actors and crew to Laguna Beach in California, where filming had to be delayed for several days due to constant fog. A couple of days later, they decided to move to the town of San Clemente in the hope of better weather, but the fog followed them there. While everyone was in San Clemente, they learned that the weather in Laguna Beach had improved, but as soon as they returned there, the fog returned as well.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
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