Film noir the most influential of the early noirs. A slew of now-renowned noir "bad girls" followed, such as those played by Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" (1946), Lana Turner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946), Ava Gardner in "The Killers" (1946), and Jane Greer in "Out of the Past" (1947). The iconic noir counterpart to the femme fatale, the private eye, came to the fore in films such as "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), with Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, and "Murder, My Sweet" (1944), with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe. The prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined
The Postman Always Rings Twice (novel) while Frank is driving. The book ends with Frank, from death row, summarizing the events that followed, explaining that he was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora. The text, he hopes, will be published after his execution. The title is a "non sequitur" in that no postman appears or is even alluded to. The meaning of the title has therefore often been the subject of speculation. William Marling, for instance, suggested that Cain may have taken the title from the sensational 1927 case of Ruth Snyder, who, like Cora in "Postman", had conspired with her lover to murder her husband.