The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

☆ ☆ ½

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) – B. Rafelson

This version of the James M. Cain novella seems grimmer than the famed 1946 version with James Garfield and Lana Turner (which is definitely a film noir) and even the 1943 Italian version (Ossessione) which is more neorealism than noir.  Jessica Lange makes a suitable Cora but Jack Nicholson seems too hangdog and beaten as Frank.  I didn’t see any chemistry and the sex scenes, supposedly necessary to undo the censorship of the ‘40s, are anything but alluring (with a sub-current of violence that is a turn-off).  The plot, set in the Depression, sees drifter Frank show up at Nick Papadakis’s petrol station/diner and decide to stay as a handyman, soon striking up an affair with young Cora behind the older Nick’s back.  Eventually, they decide to kill him in order to be together.  The subsequent court case pits them against each other and tests their relationship.  Somehow, Bob Rafelson’s direction seems to drain the action of its tension and the actors don’t really catch the screen on fire with their passion (or their conflict).  Perhaps the shift into the 1980s struck a fatal blow to the seventies drama – after all, Rafelson and Nicholson were so good in Five Easy Pieces (1970) but a decade later, they are visibly straining. Another example of a remake that shouldn’t have happened.