The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 film) confident you'll enjoy the resulting legal byplay that goes on between Hume Cronyn, as Miss Turner's lawyer, and Leon Ames, as the prosecuting attorney. As a matter of fact, Mr. Cronyn and Mr. Ames take most of the acting honors, and there is a decided letdown in the picture after a courtroom clash in which both of them participate with vast enthusiasm." Writing in 2000, critic Stephen MacMillan Moser appreciated Lana Turner's acting and wrote, "It is perhaps her finest work—from a body of work that includes very few truly stellar performances. She was a star, and not necessarily an
The Beginning or the End actors cast in the movie were best known for film noir : Hume Cronyn for "The Postman Always Rings Twice"; Joseph Calleia, for "Gilda" and "Deadline at Dawn"; and Ludwig Stössel for Fritz Lang's "Cloak and Dagger". Groves's cooperation was secured by hiring him as a primary consultant, for $10,000 (). The portly Groves apparently had no objection to his portrayal by the slim and handsome Donlevy, except for the way in which he was shown bossing industrialists around. He had a scene in which he warned Roosevelt that the invasion of Japan would be opposed by Japanese nuclear weapons