The Postman Always Rings Twice

[Lange's] allure is staggering. If you've never seen her in this film - if you've never seen the young Jessica Lange, except in "Tootsie" - prepare to pick your jaw up off the floor. Read full review

More frightening than most horror movies, more erotic than most pornography, The Postman Always Rings Twice (at the Imperial) is a sour slice of bona fide Americana, a relentlessly pessimistic melodrama that conjures memories of They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather and Chinatown. [21 March 1981]

Both leads excel at showing a true feeling (be it love or lust) but both covered in the guilty angst that one will betray the other. Edge of your seat stuff. Read full review

In the key roles, Nicholson and Lange are excellent, as is Michael Lerner as their defense attorney. Read full review

With a unity of mood, and some expert supporting performances, notably by John Colicos and Michael Lerner, it has the feel of tinny authenticity. [20 March 1981, p.17]

The disconnect between Rafelson’s low-key style and Cain’s hard-boiled storytelling is jarring at times. Read full review

The film's steamy sex scenes—especially the first, which takes place in the kitchen among foods and utensils as elemental as love and death-will raise eyebrows and temperatures...Like Last Tango in Paris, Rafelson's Postman shows what his doomed lovers do but does not tell who they are. Their willful sex scenes are explicit and incandescent; their motivations are elliptical smoke signals viewed from the other side of Death Valley. Read full review

An absolutely superb mounting of a hollow and disappointing production. It shows a technical mastery of filmmaking, and we are dazzled by the performances, the atmosphere, the mood of mounting violence. But by the second hour of the film we've lost our bearings: What is this movie saying about its characters? What does it feel and believe about them? Why was it necessary to tell their stories? Read full review

Nicholson and Lange make a class act, and the film does restore the overt sexuality missing from the 1946 version. But, disappointingly given his excellent track record with films like Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens and Stay Hungry, Bob Rafelson tries to make art out of high-grade pulp, with a resultant loss of energy. Read full review

Miss Lange is not a bad actress, but her miscasting is fatal to the picture and exemplifies its tiresomely genteel artfulness. Read full review

The film does, however, feature revealing performances from its leads, authentic production design, and atmospheric photography by Sven Nykvist. Read full review

The impulsiveness and raw flamboyance that make the book exciting are missing, and the cool, elegant visuals outclass the characters right from the start.

Nicholson looks severly overmatched against Lange but the basic problem is that the filmmakers miss the mutuality of the obsession envisioned by Cain -- an attraction that enslaves Frank and Cora, inspiring murder and betrayal in the wake of adulterous passion. [20 March 1981, p.C1]

If they merely wanted to retell a good tale, they've failed. The first half of "Postman" succeeds in building up an atmosphere of dread and throttled desire as Nicholson and Lange circle their prey (John Colicos). But after the dramatic turnarounds of the trial, the film goes slack. Just when Mamet's script should be tightening the screws, it grows diffuse, introducing unnecessary characters while unaccountably lopping off Cain's original ending, without which the title is inexplicable. Rafelson's increasingly plodding, stagy direction doesn't help: he emphasizes the mechanics of Cain's plot when it needs to be disguised. [23 March 1981, p.81]