Sami Harvey
English 111
Dustin Atkinson
4/21/13
The Postman Always Rings Twice
INTRODUCTION?
The Postman Always Rings Twice, a novel by James M. Cain in 1934 and later a film by
Tay Garnett in 1946, is fast-moving and filled with sexuality and violence. It features a young
man who roams around looking for places to work, Frank Chambers, a beautiful young women,
Cora Smith, and her older husband, Nick. Nick and Cora own a run-down diner, Twin Oaks, in
California and when Frank stops by there for a meal, Nick offers him a job. He quickly finds that
him and Cora have an undeniable attraction and begins an affair with her. Cora wanting to rid of
her old husband and take control of the diner, starts to scheme with Frank on how to murder Nick
while still keeping the diner. They plan to have Cora strike Nick over the head while he is in the
bath to make it seem as if he had drowned, but the plan goes wrong when a police man shows up
to check in and a cat lands on the fuse box, causing a power outage. She had hit him leaving him
unconscious, but not dead. They go to the hospital needing him to be alive and are relived to hear
that he has amnesia and doesn’t remember what happen.
Nick leaves only to miss Cora too much and ends up seeing Nick who brings him back to
Twin Oaks. They plan yet again to murder him, this time on a road trip up the coast. They get
him drunk, then hit him over the head and fake a car crash over a cliff. The local prosecutor
suspects a murder, but doesn’t have evidence so he turns the two against each other by
persuading Frank to sign a complaint against Cora. Cora being mad gives a full confession, but
her lawyer knowing that has a member of his staff listen to her. Both go free and plan to have a
happy future, but the two begin to have problems and are scared that the other will tell the truth.
In the end Frank and Cora finally trust each other fully again only to get in a car accident and
Cora gets killed. Since Frank was driving he is convicted for murder.
The title of this novel has a direct meaning to the events that took place. The postman is
meant to be God or fate and the delivery that is being made is the punishment for Nicks death.
The first ring was missed by Frank when he got away clean with Nicks murder, but when Cora
dies, the second ring, the door was answered and Frank was sent to prison, even if it was
wrongly accused. At the end of the movie Frank is talking to the local prosecutor explaining that
he didn’t kill Cora, but the response was only that he would be convicted either way, for Nick or
Cora’s death.
The 1946 film, starring Lana Turner and John Garfield, does a better job of portraying
noir characteristics. Classical noir needs three big things, a dangerous women, a dark urban
