I watched a lot of black-and-white movies with my pop growing up. They were his thing. He had a lot of the noirs, and we watched this one. I liked a lot of them, but not this classic noir. This one I hated and I couldn't explain why. I didn't try. I'll discuss it below
That's probably why it took me so long to read Cain's work. When I did, I found the novel a moving if awful kind of tragedy. Moreover, it had made it on Modern Library's Top 100. You can see why in the excerpt below. The novel is packed with energy, each line bursting with suggestion.
The book was apparently banned in Boston for the violence and sex. It is violent, one moment especially, but the sex is largely off stage. Different times.
This has had a ton of covers. My favorite is this first one. It captures all three characters in one shot.
Excerpt
That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern.... I blew in there in a hurry and began looking down the road. When the Greek showed, I asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac. He was to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch. Not today, said the Greek. He layed a place at one of the tables and asked me what I was going to have. I said orange juice, corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks, and coffee.
Pretty soon he came out with the orange juice and the corn flakes.
"Hold on, now. One thing I got to tell you. If this guy don't show up, you'll have to trust me for it. This was to be on him, and I'm kind of short, myself."
"Hokay, fill'm up."
I saw he was on, and quit talking about the guy in the Cadillac. Pretty soon I saw he wanted something.
"What you do, what kind of work, hey?"
"Oh, one thing and another, one thing and another. Why?"
"How old you?"
"Twenty-four."
"Young fellow, hey? I could use young fellow right now. In my business."
"Nice place you got here."
Notice how Frank hides everything about himself from Nick, in every line.
This discussion below will have no easy summary as I'll be spoiling it along the way. Here's a Youtube clip of the radio play adaptation, which is very similar to the movie version. They used to adapt movies for the radio.
Book Version
Frank uses a fallen sign to talk Nick into getting a new one. Once Nick leaves, he locks the door to be alone with Cora. He bites her lip at her request and bloodies her. Scene cuts as they head to the bedroom.
Nick is upset that Cora's lip was hurt by the swing door and he makes Frank fix it. He hits Cora in the legs and she seems to like it although she asks how he got that way. They get away every chance they get when Nick leaves. They share their pasts. She calls herself a hellcat except with Frank.
No reason is given for Nick's murder, but they plan it: Her hitting him in the head with a bag of ball bearings while he's in the tub and to hold him under, so it looks like he fell and drowned himself. When they plan the bathtub murder, Frank is to be outside and honk the horn if anyone comes by but he ends up chasing a cat and not being around when a state trooper shows up asking questions. They note the cat going up. The lights went out and she screams.
They feel they have to save Nick's life and rush him into the hospital. As soon as Nick recovers consciousness, Cora talks Nick into the story she wants him to believe. When they get back, they find the potential murder weapon on her. The state cop notes the cat caused the lights going out.
They try to run off, but Cora doesn't want to, so Nick runs off, and tries to make money at pool to get Cora. He bumps into Nick, who cajoles Frank into coming back. Nick seems proud of his accident.
That night Cora has an argument with Nick about bringing Frank back. Frank somehow hears her heartbeat and clicks on the kitchen light to find her holding a knife (whether to kill Frank, herself or Nick is unclear). They come up with a new murder plan.
The men get drunk. Nick yells that Cora, driving, will get them all killed. Foreshadowing. The worst moment is when Frank hits Nick over the head.
Frank rips her blouse and blackens her eye, so she'll pass getting into an accident. It doesn't go as planned though and Frank damages his back and arm. He goes in and out of consciousness as shipped around from mortuary to hospital.
They get interrogated. Nick acts properly confused. He seems convincing to the bald District Attorney is and the reader, but the DA is tough and even catches part of the story in guessing... except the insurance angle. The DA with much cajoling talks Frank into signing a complaint against Cora. The DA seems to know everywhere he'd been jailed.
Cora's lawyer, Katz, knows Cora will be get upset when she hears about Frank's signed complaint, so he hires a former dick to record her confession, so she can get it out of her. And then he has the complaint stuck a safe.
Frank is plagued by dreams of killing Nick, hearing the crack.
The DA crows about his sure win and bets Katz one hundred dollars on the court results. The insurance agent had gone to Nick and he told Nick that injury insurance was needed. Also there were two policies in effect at the same time, and even if they did hang Cora, the insurance companies still had to pay since Frank could sue injuries and the companies would have to pay. He had the insurance companies agree that she had caused the murder because they had a guest clause that if Nick and Cora caused an accident, then the companies had to pay. It's a bit complicated. So Nick put his insurance man on the the stand who said that they didn't think Cora had done it.
Nick decides not to charge Cora for the lawyering. The DA's check was enough.
Frank and Cora have it out. They hold each other responsible (him for the complaint, her for the confession) but seem to have forgiven one another.
They talk of selling the business, but Cora wants to expand it from car repair and hotdogs, to include beer outside under the shade. Frank is upset. He wants to move on.
While Cora's in Iowa, Frank runs into Madge who sells big Central American cats to zoos and movies. So he takes off with her. She asks if he's got "Gypsy blood" in him like she does. A match.
Kennedy, Katz's dick, extorts money out of Frank and Cora to get Cora's confession. Frank uses the sign to blind Kennedy and gets the gun and hands it to Cora to hold while he beats on Kennedy. Kennedy complies and tells his buddies to bring the photostats and original confession.
Cora finds out about Frank and Madge. Madge left a puma kitten to remember her.
Cora and Frank torture each other. He wants to kill Cora and she wants to turn him in. But Frank feels a love-hate. Cora is having Frank's baby and never wanted to hang the kid's father.
Frank dives underwater and finally feels clean, but Cora's sick and he carries her to the car. A truck is blocking the passing lane despite his honking of the horn. Cars are coming on the left, so he tries to go around the right and runs into the culvert wall. The puma kitten hadn't been taken care of so it was mangy and tried to bite Frank. Judge calls Frank a mad dog. He worries about what Cora thinks about him. He asks the reader for prayers for him, Nick and Cora.
Cats are their bad luck. We have the electrocuted cat who foiled their first murder attempt (although I'm not completely sure why), and then the lawyer who helped and now this puma which led him astray and now testified against him.
Movie Version
In the movie, the District Attorney gives Frank a lift to the restaurant, which is interesting. The DA seems to have an interest in the itinerant man's future. And yet, in a cosmic way, he's the one who delivers the doomed man to his fate. Plus we get to see the good-guy antagonist (and the cop who tries to give a ticket to the DA for parking in the road). Frank has apparently called about a job and tells Nick [Smith--they erased the racism for the movie] that he's got itchy feet [he moves a lot]. There's a wonderful sign "Man Wanted"--great triple entendre (for hire, for sex, for murder).
Nick is immediately smitten and picks up her lipstick for her. Did she drop it on purpose? We don't get to see. But she puts out her hand for him to deliver the lipstick as if he's her servant, but he steps back to lean against the counter instead, making her come to him.
Nick thrusts the young couple together when he encourages them to dance when he can't. Cora tries to get out of it, but Nick insists.
Frank uses the outside sign as a way to get in with Cora since she's long been wanting Nick to get a newer sign.
In love, they leave a note in the cash register that she's leaving him, and head out on the road, but Cora is miserable, so she has them turn around. She doesn't want the itinerant life.
After they attempt the bathtub murder, the DA follows in his car and notes the step ladder. Frank blames the cat.
When Nick comes home nearly run off the road, they come up with a plan to run him off the road. Nick has plans to sell the place, as his sister can't walk and he wants Cora to help take care of her. He almost seems to know about their plans. Cora rejects this as she doesn't want to sell the place, but he had her sign a divorce agreement, not knowing what it was, so that she'd get nothing if she left him.
So they come with a plan to kill him. In this accident, she is uninjured and Frank accidentally get caught in the automobile.
They get pressured into marrying. To test him, to let him drown her or save her life, they swim out to where she can't swim any more. He saves her, but his distracted driving runs them into road. He's happy when they can prove he will die not because of Cora but because of his killing Nick.
In jail, Frank explains the title, in part. The postman rings twice, and you always hear the second time.
The Difference
The movie follows the book pretty closely with some ingenious improvements. Love that sign. Simplifying the insurance angle was good. I'm not sure I followed. Keeping the DA around developed his character and added tension and some symbolic weight. The racism angle was probably worth cutting although it did add a layer of characterization, a man proud of his heritage (though his wife was not). Nick isn't necessarily that much older than Cora in the book.
Here's what broke me: In the movie, though older, he seems so sweet, I didn't want to see him hurt. The book had another advantage, perhaps due to not being pressed for time: It would add pressure and take it off. We'd feel the tension, but when it released, we had hope that the characters might improve their behavior. The sexual tension is there in the book, but it takes him a bit to encourage her. Maybe it's in my imagination, but it feels like they can succeed by running away, or by sticking to their (Frank with the DA), or by finally getting together. We get these little breathers that, even if we disapprove, we at least feel they're going to turn their lives around. The movie feels like a relentless road of misery, one bad move after another.
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I'm catching up on reviews, so it was a surprise that once again my readings coincided with Scott Bradfield's. Here's his discussion on the writer.
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