The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 film) filmed as "Le Dernier Tournant" ("The Last Turning") in France in 1939 and as "Ossessione" ("Obsession") in Italy in 1943. Frank Chambers (John Garfield) is a hobo who has hitched a ride with a man we later comes to learn is the local District Attorney, Kyle Sackett (Leon Ames). He drops Frank off at a rural diner/service station, Twin Oaks, for a meal. Frank ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young woman, Cora Smith (Lana Turner), and her much older husband, Nick (Cecil Kellaway). Frank and Cora start to have an affair soon after they
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.