I first saw this film in its initial theatrical release, and recall that I, a younger, relatively innocent teenager, became very absorbed and, in those years of more conservative social norms, rather shocked by the grittiness of the plot and the eroticism. Lana Turner, up to that point in her career as a budding MGM star, here had a chance to move out of her glamorous starlet image the studio had nurtured. This seems to have been her opportunity to develop as an actress. Within the plot she was given the difficult task of making the transition from sultry seducer, to murderess, to vixen; and at the same time to maintain a level of erotic tension with John Garfield, not ideally cast as a ladies' man. She did not manage to maneuver these changes of character with complete success; especially when it came to the point of conveying the vixen quality; she comes across more as bitchy. In the early scenes,however, she takes the next step from girl-next-door ingénue with assurance. The film as a whole suffers from the fact that it is inevitably compared with the later Double Indemnity, and the performances of Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray; especially her embodiment of the archetypal cold, manipulative and unloving female. For me, the difference between the two similar narratives is that between a rating of eight and a rating of ten.
Review of The Postman Always Rings Twice
