The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) – one way or another …

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) – one way or another …

Review by Jack Kost

Hard times reveal peoples' true natures.

Often the worst side.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), was directed by Bob Rafelson, and released in the United States on March 20, 1981.

His previous notable directorial credits include: Five Easy Pieces (1970), and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), also starring Jack Nicholson.

The screenplay, by David Mamet, was based on the 1934 hardboiled novel of the same title, by James M. Cain.

David Mamet’s writing and directing credits include: House of Games (1987), Homicide (1991), Hoffa (1992), and Heist (2001).

Set during the depression era, Frank Chambers (Jack Nicholson) is a drifter with a criminal record, an opportunistic petty crook and conman, thumbing rides on his way to wherever he can make a fast buck.

He pulls a fast one at a roadside gas station and diner: conning the owner, Nick (John Colicos) into giving him a free meal.

Nick also sees an opportunity and hires Frank as cheap labor.

Nick’s beautiful wife, Cora (Jessica Lange), immediately catches Frank’s attention.

With no better prospects, Frank takes the job.

Frank and Cora are bad people.

Selfish to the point where it can be said they ultimately deserve each other.

Frank is the kind of man who will smile to your face and then knock you down for the cash in your pocket.

Cora makes up the trio of opportunists.

She married Nick not for love, but as a way out of hardship; only succeeding in marrying out of one hash house into another.

Cora is a scheming femme-fatale: a vamp, fully aware of her seductive power.

She is bored, dissatisfied, and unhappy in her marriage to Nick, an older and oafish drunk.

He’s no better; coarse and insensitive, selfish in his own way, taking Cora for granted.

Cora feels neglected, used, and trapped.

Nick tells Cora he has a surprise for her, but it turns out to be a silk robe he bought for himself.

When Frank and Cora first make love on the kitchen table, the coupling is as violent and desperate as it is passionate.

Frank is ready to leave, suggesting to Cora that they both just take off together and leave Nick.

Cora is worried that Nick would come after them and sooner or later he’d catch up and she’d face his retribution.

Frank and Cora see in each other a way out, a way to a better future, a life together, with Nick’s business as their own.

The dynamic of the situation can only go one way.

It was never going to end well.

Nick is in the way.

Nick may not deserve the brutal end Frank and Cora inflict on him, but it’s still difficult for us to feel any sympathy for him.

After a failed attempt to kill Nick, the balance of power shifts between Frank and Cora and, fearing she will lose Frank, seduces him into murder:

CORA:

I gotta have you, Frank. If it was just us. If it was just you and me.

FRANK:

What are you talking about?

CORA:

I’m tired of what’s right and wrong.

FRANK:

They hang people for that, Cora.

Beneath the passion, there is a coldness to this movie, as cold as Frank and Cora are to Nick and, at times, each other.

It’s this cold, cruel, selfishness that prevents us from sympathizing for how they end up.

The novel has been filmed several times, with plays adapted for radio and stage, including an opera.

The 1981 movie version is superior in its gritty realism.

The script and actors were not constrained by the censorship of previous times; they could tell it like it played out in the author’s imagination.

Although harshly criticized on its release, the movie has endured and stands as a high-point in the careers of all involved.

The supporting cast includes: Michael Lerner, John P. Ryan, William Traylor, Ron Flagge, William Newman, Albert Henderson, Christopher Lloyd, Jon Van Ness, and Brion James.

The color tones in the movie are subdued, mostly varying shades of brown, reflecting the drabness of the times.

The music, by Michael Small, evokes an atmosphere of the time, in a neo-noir setting of drama, seduction, infidelity, deception, and murder.

Frank and Cora’s doomed relationship swings from love to hate.

How can a relationship, borne out of infidelity and murder, marred by suspicion, hope to survive?

Frank has a lazy streak, and a weakness for gambling.

When Cora goes out of town to visit her ailing mother, Frank shirks responsibility when left alone.

He closes the diner, takes off, encounters a traveling circus, and cheats on Cora with a wild cat tamer, played by Anjelica Huston.

Cora discovers Frank’s betrayal and takes it badly.

It further confirms Frank’s true nature, adding fuel to the fire of their already unstable relationship: cheaters cheat.

If they cheat with you, chances are they'll cheat on you.

It also confirms a double-standard in Cora: it was one thing Cora cheating on Nick with Frank, but another thing entirely when Frank cheated on her with another woman.

What goes around comes around.

If events had panned out different for Frank and Cora, they might have become victims to their own nature.

Stuck in another rut.

Frank may have found himself meeting a similar end to Nick.

It’s an old story.

A cautionary morality tale of stupid, selfish people making stupid, selfish choices.

Highlighting a recurring bad choice many people make, generation after generation: the mirage of the grass seeming greener on the other side of the fence.

It isn’t.

They fool themselves into thinking the new lover will be the perfect partner, able to provide them with the perfect life.

They quickly learn the new partner comes with faults and problems of their own.

The trip to the other side of that proverbial fence is often one-way.

The wrong choice is made, the bridge is then burned and, like Frank and Cora, they find themselves in a worse situation.

They may cheat the hangman, but life, fate, justice, karma – whatever you choose to call it – has a way of ringing twice.