The Postman Always Rings Twice Directed by Tay Garnett
1946/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing
#185 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Frank Chambers: With my brains and your looks, we could go places.[/box]
It’s back to a studio big-budget glamour noir for this installment of noir month. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it until today. This was based on the 1934 novel by the same name by James M. Cain. The novel had previously been adapted in the neo-realist style as the Ossessione (1942), Luchino Visconti’s first feature film. I saw Ossessione several years ago and, although I don’t remember it vividly, the story was quite a bit different. I’m now curious to read the novel.
Frank Chambers is a drifter who lands on the door of a roadside diner/gas station run by Nick Smith and his much-younger wife Cora and gets a job as a mechanic. He rapidly falls for the beautiful blonde Cora and she for him. Soon the couple is looking for a way to get the kindly Nick out of the picture. This being a film noir nothing goes smoothly, to say the least. With John Garfield as Frank, Lana Turner as Cora, Cecil Kellaway as Nick, Leon Ames as a district attorney, and Hume Cronyn as a defense attorney.
I liked this film alright but it doesn’t have the bite of my favorite noirs. Part of the problem for me may be Lana Turner’s performance. I have a problem seeing Cora as a proper femme fatale – for one thing she doesn’t seem clever enough. I was surprised to see Cecil Kellaway in the role of the husband. I would never have imagined someone British as Nick. John Garfield is always good. Probably my favorite performance was Hume Cronyn as the sleazy defense attorney.
Sunset Blvd. Directed by Billy Wilder
1950/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing
#229 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
IMDb users say 8.6/10; I say 10/10
[box]Joe Gillis: [voice-over] You don’t yell at a sleepwalker – he may fall and break his neck. That’s it: she was still sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career.[/box]
Billy Wilder’s caustic indictment of the Hollywood dream factory and human cupidity is a classic in every sense of the word. From the opening showing the title painted on a curb with fallen leaves in the gutter, you know you are in the presence of a master.
The film is narrated by small-time screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) from the grave and tells the story of his last days. Joe is a true noir hero doomed by a moment of weakness and an underlying longing for the finer things. His fate is sealed when, in an effort to foil some men out to repossess his car, he drives into the garage of what at first appears to be an abandoned mansion.
Soon enough, Joe meets demented silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) who, having just lost her pet chimp, is looking for a replacement chump. Joe is not smart enough to figure this out, however, and thinks he has scored big time when Norma asks him to help her with the screenplay on her comeback vehicle Salomé. He barely bats an eye when without his knowledge Norma moves all his possessions to her home and installs him in an apartment over the garage.
Norma, alternately imperious and delusional, showers Joe with expensive presents but somehow doesn’t manage to keep him in spending money and allows his car to be repossessed. She is totally obsessed with her “return” to the silver screen and her memories of the glories of her day as one of the top stars in cinema. On New Year’s Eve, she declares her love and Joe flees to a friend’s party where he becomes acquainted with aspiring screenwriter Betty Schaffer (Nancy Olson), a close friend’s fiancée. A mixture of pity and guilt sends Joe back to the mansion, however, when Norma attempts suicide and a New Year’s Eve kiss signals that Joe has prostituted himself completely.
“All right Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up”
Norma’s comeback dreams are raised to a fever pitch when Cecil B. DeMille’s office, to whom she has mailed the Salomé script, calls and the director himself offers a few half-hearted words that she interprets as encouragement. Meanwhile, Joe and Betty have started working on their own script and Betty gradually falls in love with Joe. A chain of events has been set in motion that will soon coming crashing down on everyone involved.
Gloria Swanson’s performance as Norma Desmond was her finest hour. She manages to invest her character with mix of toughness, vulnerability, insanity, and determination that makes Norma pitiable and horrifying all at once. The rest of the cast is equally wonderful.
It was really difficult to choose a quote from this movie since the screenplay is razor sharp and endlessly quotable. The Franz Waxman score is one of the greats. In fact, the film is flawless as far as I am concerned. You really should see it before you die.
Praised by many critics when first released, Sunset Boulevard was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won three (for Best Writing, Best Art Decoration, and Best Score). Deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989, Sunset Boulevard was included in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
I’ve been a classic movie fan for many years. My original mission was to see as many movies as I could get my hands on for every year from 1929 to 1970. I have completed that mission.
I then carried on with my chronological journey and and stopped midway through 1978. You can find my reviews of 1934-1978 films and “Top 10” lists for the 1929-1936 and 1944-77 films I saw here. For the past several months I have circled back to view the pre-Code films that were never reviewed here.
I’m a retired Foreign Service Officer living in Indio, California. When I’m not watching movies, I’m probably traveling, watching birds, knitting, or reading.
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