KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

dougdoepke Plot—A penniless drifter stops by a roadside diner, and takes a job there after getting a load of the owner's sexy wife. Their relationship grows, while the middle-aged husband suspects nothing. Eventually, the two run away together, only to have the wife suddenly return, unable to leave the comforts of a successful business. But the two are unable to stay apart causing the drifter to return. Finally, the lovers decide to fake an accident killing the inconvenient husband. That way they can be together with all the comforts of the popular diner. That is, if things work out according to plan.Postman is indeed first-rate noir, a genuine classic. Both Turner and Garfield deserved at least Oscar nomination, along with the shifty-eyed Hume Cronyn in a supporting role. In fact their casting was really inspired. Apparently, the chemistry between the two leads smoldered off- screen (IMDB) as well as on.In her angelic white outfits (a wardrobe note of irony), Turner's spider woman reaches iconic status. In fact, I can't help noting her darn near perfect complexion throughout, smooth as silk and a perfect mask. Garfield's streetwise drifter, Chambers, is also superbly realized. Probably, Chambers should have followed his instincts instead of his libido after that first iconic meeting. For it turns out that it is Cora who can't give up the seductions of a comfortable life-style even for his love. It also turns out that neither lover has murder in his or her heart, but together they're trapped. She's trapped by desire for comfort and his smarts; he's struck blind by desire for her short shorts. I guess their mutual attraction is what the French might call "amour fou" (crazy love). In this case, however, love doesn't conquer all until it's too late. Perhaps then it is fate that their long, crooked path should end in tragedy.At the same time, I doubt the legal profession was very happy with the movie's behind-the- scenes legal maneuvering. Cora's attorney Keats (Cronyn) manages to manipulate the law and DA Sackett (Ames) into freeing her, despite her guilt. In short, guilt and innocence is shown as secondary to bargaining outside the courtroom between attorneys. Juries, it seems, don't really matter. All in all, I take the movie's last scenes as a sop to the censors. In fact, the screenplay pushes the 1940's envelope with infidelity, wedlock pregnancy, and Turner's unabashed allure. So some kind of righteous redress was, I guess, required by the watchdogs. Still, the sexual subtext is too strong to override with a last minute gesture to convention. It's probably also relevant that a symbolic swim in the cleansing ocean should prepare the couple for what amounts to after-life redemption. While In that same memorable scene, Cora confesses her sins, even as she struggles atop a black sea of eternity. Thus the powerful symbolism of that dark sea and the plot's underlying fatalism are compromised by what amounts to a last minute appeal to religious convention.I do have a couple gripes. Are we really expected to believe that Cora's middle-aged husband and diner owner, Nick (Kellaway), suspects nothing between his sexy wife and the studly Chambers. And that's even after he stumbles on them in suggestive settings. Now, I'm willing to suspend disbelief during a movie, but only up to a point. In a serious film like this, the point was quickly and unhappily surpassed. Some hint that maybe Nick knows, but puts up with it for bigger reasons, would have helped. The other gripe is a minor one but worth mentioning in a quality film. And that's how easily Chambers beats up the burly Kennedy. Come on director Garnett, that's about as plausible as barroom brawl in a kid's matinée.All in all, Postman's a true noir classic, one of the few to justify a two-hour runtime. Too bad the film and its stars were overlooked Oscar-wise. But then, I guess the lurid content upset too many important people. But it's still a good gripping film to catch up with, that is, if you haven't already.

gavin6942 A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband... but even once the deed is done, they must live with the consequences of their actions.Surprisingly, this version was actually 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.Bosley Crowther gave the film a positive review and lauded the acting and direction of film, writing, "Too much cannot be said for the principals. Mr. Garfield reflects to the life the crude and confused young hobo who stumbles aimlessly into a fatal trap. And Miss Turner is remarkably effective as the cheap and uncertain blonde who has a pathetic ambition to 'be somebody' and a pitiful notion that she can realize it through crime." Despite the multiple versions, this is probably the "definitive" one. It certainly is the one that went on to be influential. I even recall such an unlikely place as "Sesame Street" making a parody of it, which is bizarre considering this was probably not a movie that appealed to kids.

v_haritha_in Frank Chambers (John Garfield) is newly hired at a roadside café run by a jolly middle-aged man, Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway). Chambers soon finds himself involved with his employer's gorgeous young wife, Cora (Lana Turner). They murder Nick and are even cleared by the law, but they find out that life as murderers comes at a price.What Frank and Cora have for each other at first is no love, it is lust. It consumes them. They would do anything to get together. They act first and realize the consequences later. They run away from the café and only then discover they have nowhere to go. So, they plan on doing away with the cuckold and what they discover after this act is far more terrible. They cannot trust each other any more because they each know what the other is capable of. At the same time, they also realize they have come to love each other through their journey. They can neither live with not without each other. Since this movie was made in the era of Hays Code, it could not be explicitly sexual or let the wrong-doers get away. But it mocks the code. Where it could not show or imply sex, it is rife with steamy atmosphere and titillating symbolism. The murderers are punished but they also get their redemption making them more human.Turner and Garfield make sparks fly weather they are passionately in love or at each others throats. The platinum blond hair never sat better on any other actress as it did on Turner. She wears white throughout the movie, the intention being to contrast it with her dark personality. That idea is dated but it makes her stand out against the blacks and grays of the background. This movie is up there with the best among film-noirs.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . according to the California state police in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. You see, the cat doesn't ring at all, because it's just a cat, and cat's don't ring. It just slinks around, electrocuting people. If ladders and cats are bad luck separately, this Film Noir effort shows that they're double trouble together. Since there is no disclaimer at the end of POSTMAN about "no animals being harmed during the making of this movie," viewers can only assume that the doomed feline shown in full rigor "the morning after" is not just "faking it" by "playing dead." Its late night death screech during the previous scene sounded real (rather than the result of "vocal coaching"), and I still can't forget than Hollywood allowed Thomasina to be buried alive (not to mention what happened to the little daughter's kitty in I REMEMBER MAMA). Some say cats have nine lives. However, Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, the Shaggy Dog and their canine cohorts seem to put out 10 "arfs" on the big screen for each "meow" heard there. Blofeld strokes his Fluffy White Pu$$y Cat as the head of S.P.E.C.T.R.E., just the foremost in a long line of screen villains to favor the nefarious feline over "Man's best friend." The POSTMAN killers are merely one more entry to a very long list.