The Postman Always Rings Twice

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Lana Turner and John Garfield generate some serious heat and even more serious trouble in this steamy, sultry noir thriller of desire and betrayal based on the novel by James M. Cain, whose vicious pen also gave the world Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce. The sign outside the roadside diner says “Man Wanted,” and drifter Frank Chambers (Garfield) knows the sign has more than one meaning when he eyes the pouty, luminous Cora Smith (Turner), the much-younger wife of the diner’s proprietor. Cora has big plans for the diner and for Frank, too, but first she needs to make her unsuspecting husband disappear … with Frank’s help. Despite his initial reluctance, Frank’s scruples are overwhelmed by lust and soon he and Cora are hatching a murderous plan. Naturally, things don’t go exactly according to plan, and Cora and Frank are about to find out that The Postman Always Rings Twice. Lana Turner burns up the screen as the scheming femme fatale who ensnares John Garfield’s down-on-his-luck lunk in an entertainingly twisty downward spiral of evil and deceit in this classic noir also starring Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames and Alan Reed. (Dir. by Tay Garnett, 1946, USA, 113 mins., Not Rated)