The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

Taglines: If there was an Eleventh Commandment, they would have broken that too.

The Postman Always Rings Twice movie synopsis. Frank Chambers (Jack Nicholson) a drifter, stops at a depression-era rural California diner in the hills outside Los Angeles for a meal and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a young, beautiful woman, Cora Smith (Jessica Lange), and her much older husband, Nick Papadakis (John Colicos), a hardworking but unimaginative immigrant from Greece.

Frank and Cora start to have an affair soon after they meet. Cora is tired of her situation, married to an older man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own and improve. She and Frank scheme to murder Nick to start a new life together without her losing the diner. Their first attempt at the murder is a failure, but they succeed with their second attempt.

The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred but does not have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another, he tries only Cora for the crime. Although they turn against each other, a clever ploy from Cora’s lawyer, Katz (Michael Lerner), 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 deal in which she pleads guilty to manslaughter and is sentenced to probation.

Months later, Frank has an affair with Madge Gorland (Anjelica Huston) while Cora is out of town. When Cora returns, she tells Frank she is pregnant. That night, Katz’s assistant, Kennedy (John P. Ryan), appears at their door and threatens to expose them unless they give him $10,000. Enraged, Frank beats Kennedy up and strong-arms him into giving up the evidence against them.

The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1981 American neo-noir erotic thriller film directed by Bob Rafelson and written by David Mamet (in his screenwriting debut). Starring Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange, John Colicos, Michael Lerner, John P. Ryan, Anjelica Huston, William Traylor, Thomas Hill, Jon Van Ness, William Newman, Raleigh Bond, it is the fourth adaptation of the 1934 novel by James M. Cain. The film was shot in Santa Barbara, California.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) - Jessica Lange — The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) – Jessica Lange

Film Review for The Postman Always Rings Twice

“The Postman Always Rings Twice” is an absolutely superb mounting of a hollow and disappointing production. It shows a technical mastery of filmmaking, and we are dazzled by the performances, the atmosphere, the mood of mounting violence. But by the second hour of the film we’ve lost our bearings: What is this movie saying about its characters? What does it feel and believe about them?

Why was it necessary to tell their stories? The movie is based on a hardboiled, classic novel by James M. Cain, which has already inspired three previous films, including the famous 1946 John Garfield version. It isn’t difficult to guess why the director, Bob Rafelson, wanted to make it again. On the basis of his key scenes, he was attracted by the physical violence in the story and he felt that in 1981 he could deal more frankly with Cain’s sexual savagery.

He was right. His film contains passages of unusual physical power, including one in which Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange make love (if that is the word) on a kitchen table. Nicholson plays a Depression-era drifter in the film, a cheap thief, and a con man. Lange is the bored and sensuous cook in a short-order joint run by her much older Greek husband, John Colicos. Passion flares between Nicholson and Lange almost the moment they first see one another, and their lovemaking is quick, brutal, uncontrolled, and animalistic.

Eventually, they kill Colicos, although not without the greatest difficulties. This is one of those films where blood, violence, and sheer weight of human bodies are made into Hitchcockian embarrassments. And then the two lovers are put on trial, are freed through a cynical arrangement between opposing insurance companies, and then arrive at an ironic fate. Along the way, there is a brief and totally inexplicable appearance by a woman lion tamer (Anjelica Huston), who seems to be visiting from another movie.

The movie is a triumph of atmosphere. Every last weathered Coke sign, every old auto and old overcoat and old cliché have been put in with loving care. And the performances have been cranked up to levels of trembling intensity. Jessica Lange, first seen in “King Kong,” this time submits to the embrace of a wanton monster. Jack Nicholson has never been seedier, shiftier, more driven. John Colicos, as the simple, alcoholic, ambitious Greek-American, provides a wonderfully textured performance.

And yet, there is no feeling of tragedy in Colicos’s death. No feeling of greatness in the romantic compulsion of Lange and Nicholson. No way to tell what the movie believes about their acquittal and eventual fate. A movie such as “Bonnie and Clyde” comes to mind. It also dealt with passion, crime, and money, but so clearly that at the end of the film we felt we knew the dying characters.