Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

subverted to make up for any censorial cuts. In fact, the phrase could not have been more
misleading when Lana Turner first appears all dressed in white (shorts, blouse, and a
turban wrapped around her blonde locks). A few pages later, both lovers hatch the plot of
murdering Cora’s husband. Their initial attempts do not succeed, but eventually, on a trip
to Santa Barbara, the murder is committed when Frank hits Nick’s head with an empty
glass bottle (fig. 7). Tay Garnett’s direction highlights the paradox that exists in the
characters’ lives, lending it a surreal quality, as in the sequence below when Frank misses
his hit the first time.
Figure 7. The Postman Always Rings Twice
Through these two films, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice,
James M. Cain managed to set up a model for many screenwriters in the forties and fifties.
His explicit tales of murder, greed and lust concerned everyday people, as Geoffrey
O’Brien states:
Cain was another chronicler of the gratuitousness of fate, in the sexual rather than
the criminal sphere – but for Cain the two spheres are rarely far apart. (...) In the
typical Cain story someone opens a door at random (and in the first paragraph) and
his destiny is sealed then and there. Generally it is not long before he realizes what
52