BEFORE: I suppose some people see me as a negative sort of person - I know people at work do, because I'm always the one to speak up and say something's not being done right, this invoice is wrong, we need to get a permit, etc. But by thinking of all the things that can go wrong, I feel that's half of the battle towards getting things to be done properly. And when it comes to movies, I sit here night after night and point out all of their faults and plotholes, so I think I can understand if people perceive of me as the "screen door in the submarine". But from my point of view, I'm just keeping it real. What am I supposed to do, not say something if I perceive a mistake or a bad storyline?
I recently discovered that nearly every record album is posted on YouTube, which is even more convenient than downloading songs. I have boxes of cassettes that I keep meaning to replace with MP3 files, but I never seem to get around to that. And now I don't have to - I can just call up a YouTube video any time I want to hear an album from my youth. On one hand, I'm reliving some great music memories - but on the other, I can pinpoint exactly when my favorite bands from the 80's started to suck.
Linking from "The Public Enemy", James Cagney was also in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" with Frank Mayo.
THE PLOT: 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.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Double Indemnity" (Movie #1,393)
AFTER: With a story by James M. Cain, his original novel was like the "50 Shades of Grey" of the 1930's. Everyone was reading it despite (or perhaps because of) its salacious nature, and it was considered unfilmable due to the production code, but then after a decade or so, somebody found a way to do it.
Cain's story in thie film was referenced by Bill Plympton in his production notes on "Cheatin'", both films have couples in love/hate relationships, they're tied together and can't break away from each other. But while this film took over an hour to get them at each other's throats, Plympton did it much quicker - he used a contrivance as a shortcut, but that also proved more elegant than this twisty plot.
However, I like a good twisty plot. I was looking for some fault here in the logic that gets the couple from point A to point B to the eventual conclusion, and I can't find one. Even all the manipulations of the slick lawyer (possibly the best character) make a crazy sort of sense. It seems like a bit of a set-up to get this man and this woman to this weird balance of love and hate - where they can't come together and they can't split up, they can't kill each other even though they want to. But still it has a very real feel to it.
I'm left wondering, what does the title mean? Is the postman a metaphor for God, Death, or what? All the while I kept expecting an actual postman ringing the bell, I guess I was being too literal.
But it's like Yoda said, "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny...consume you it will."
Also starring Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn (last seen in "The World According to Garp"), Leon Ames.
RATING: 7 out of 10 hamburgers
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