Tagline: Their love was a flame that destroyed!
The Postman Always Rings Twice movie storyline. Frank Chambers (John Garfield) is a hobo who stops at a rural diner for a meal and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young woman, Cora Smith (Lana Turner), and her much older husband, Nick (Cecil Kellaway).
Frank and Cora start to have an affair soon after they meet. Cora is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love and working at a diner that she wishes to own. After first contemplating running away together, they instead decide to murder Nick in order to keep the diner. They plan to bludgeon Nick to death and pretend that he hit his head while taking bath. The plan goes awry when a police officer stops by and a cat causes a power outage.
Cora knocks Nick over the head but merely injures him. Nick returns from the hospital and Cora is determined to live out her life with him. However, Nick surprises Cora with the news that he has agreed to sell the diner and that they will be moving in with his infirm sister in Canada. Unwilling to leave her life behind, Cora conspires with Frank to kill her husband, this time by getting him drunk and staging a car accident. They succeed in killing Nick but Frank is seriously injured. Cora is discovered by the District Attoeney, Kyle Sackett (Leon Ames), who had followed them from the diner.
As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on each other, he files murder charges against only Cora. Although they turn against each other, a clever ploy from Cora’s lawyer (Hume Cronyn) prevents Cora’s full confession from coming into the hands of the prosecutor. With the tactic having failed to generate any new evidence for the prosecution, Cora benefits from a plea bargain in which she pleads guilty to manslaughter and receives probation.
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1946 film noir based on the 1934 novel of the same name by James M. Cain. This adaptation of the novel features Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, and Audrey Totter. It was directed by Tay Garnett. The musical score was written by George Bassman and Erich Zeisl (the latter uncredited).
This version was the third filming of The Postman Always Rings Twice, but the first under the novel’s original title and the first in English. Previously, the novel had been filmed as Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Turning) in France in 1939 and as Ossessione (Obsession) in Italy in 1943.
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Directed by: Tay Garnett
Starring: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, Audrey Totter, Alan Reed, Jeff York, Philip Ahlm, Don Anderson, Morris Ankrum, Betty Blythe, Dorothy Phillips
Screenplay by: Harry Ruskin, Niven Busch
Cinematography by: Sidney Wagner
Film Editing by: George White
Set Decoration by: Edwin B. Willis
Art Direction by: Randall Duell, Cedric Gibbons
Makeup Department: Jack Dawn
Music by: George Bassman, Erich Zeisl
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release Date: May 2, 1946
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