The Best Laid Plans Always Go Awry- With The 1946 Film Adaptation of James M. Cain’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” In Mind

The Best Laid Plans Always Go Awry- With The 1946 Film Adaptation of James M. Cain’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” In Mind   

By Si Landon

[The following “confession” was found in Martha Ames’ effects at the time of her death some twenty years after the mysterious death by his own hand of Leon Ames, a District Attorney in Los Angeles County out in California. From the markings Martha had had the document for many years and had kept the whole affair quiet out of what knows what reason. Maybe sorrow, maybe anger that another woman, a tramp, had captured his imagination, maybe revenge that his “confession” would never see the light of day while she had anything to do about it and her sudden death by heart attack had cut across her purpose. The only clue to what had happened back then was a comment made to her daughter, Emily, that Leon was always a sucker for that jasmine scent, a scent she had used herself to capture his attention when they were young. Si Landon]  

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Now that Frank Chambers is safely out of the way, now that last night at midnight he had the life squeezed out of him, suffocated in his own gas-driven vomit courtesy of the great State of California, and me, Leon Ames, the guy who prosecuted the case of California v. Frank Chambers I can tell whoever finds this little confession now or a hundred years from now what really happened. Why Frank had to take the gas for a crime he did not commit. A crime he had sworn on seven stacked bibles that he did not commit but I was able to convince a select hand-picked jury that an accident was actually a devious murder plan. And it was except not by Frank, not by a longshot but Father Lally who administered the last rite of his church, Frank’s church, the Roman Catholic one that forgives all sinners in the end and gives then a half way decent shot at heaven told me that at the end Frank, soft-headed Frank figured he got what he deserved. What did Father Lally say he called it, oh yeah, divine retribution for his other sin. That “divine retribution” was Father Lally’s way of putting the matter to a heathen Protestant but I knew better, a lot better. It was nothing but Leon Ames retribution, or maybe covering up is a better way to put it.

They say Jim Farrell, the Postmaster General of the United States, is going to eliminate the service to save some dough and I guess wear and tear on the postman who delivers the mail by having them just deliver the mail and move on instead of ringing doorbells expecting somebody to answer and if they don’t to ring the damn bell again. This is the way we called a thing and it had nothing to do with divine retribution around my old neighborhood, around the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles, when we were kids and we always said when something happened, usually some petty larceny, or car-jacking, it was after all a rough neighborhood I grew up in, and then got nailed for say truancy or some other crime that “the postman always rings twice.” Some guy, a crime writer named Cain, pretty good too, used that for the title of his book I remember once when I saw a copy in the library but that was long after I gave up the petty criminal life and went to college and then law school before eventually being elected a local D.A. in sprawling Los Angeles County. I had to laugh when I thought about it in the middle of the night last night when something woke me up that first Lana, then Frank, and now I had heard that damn postman ringing twice.

See I was the guy behind the whole plot, the whole scheme for me and Lana to get rid of her husband, an old geezer named Cecil Kellaway, a guy who ran the Dew Drop Inn out on the Pacific Coast Highway above Point Magoo as you start hitting the beautiful and scenic beach spots. Cecil was not a bad guy but cheap and, more importantly looked like he would live to a ripe old age. Cecil had picked up Lana, Lana Turner, as least that was the name she used when Cecil picked her up in some gin mill in Santa Monica when she was working as a B-girl and when he offered to take her away from that life she grabbed the deal with all arms. A safe port in stormy weather since she had nothing better going on, had been on her uppers too long to argue the point. That Lana Turner moniker she told me one time she had picked up from reading one of those Hollywood gossip magazines and seen a candid photograph of the actress of the same name and though she looked like that film star. Another time she told me that some guy she had picked up (and jack-rolled) had called her Lana Turner as part of his come on and she liked it enough to hold onto it for dear life. That was the name on the marriage license that Nick had framed in the living room of their house which was adjacent and connected to the diner. (It would turn out once court proceedings started that her real name was Cora Smith from Omaha, Nebraska via the school of hard knocks). That Lana Turner look-a-like was true enough. Blond as blond hair real enough with maybe a few touches as befitted a corn-fed Midwestern girl, big blue eyes that could devour you or scorn you and maybe both at the same time, a nice shape in all the right places, which showed to great effect when she wore those tight cashmere sweaters she was addicted to when she wasn’t wearing that tight waitress’ uniform when she was serving them off the arm at the Dew Drop, and nicely-turned legs and ankles. The whole package. And the morals and conscience of a sewer rat.

But I didn’t care, didn’t give a damn if she had morals or conscience or anything once I got a look at her one day when I was driving up the Pacific Coast Highway investigating a case that was coming up for trial and tired and hungry from the trip decided to stop when I saw a big Eats sign up ahead. She had that tight uniform on that day and every nerve in my body tingled as she provocatively served me my meatloaf dinner. I would not learn until later, later after that jasmine scent she wore drove me to distraction and I couldn’t think of anything but being with her that she was organically incapable of doing anything without that come hither look when a man was within fifty yards of her. It took many generations of breeding to get her to that fine-tuned sexual being that drove me, and Frank, crazy. Apparently not Cecil since he used her like a dishrag. 

That was the start of my downfall, the first time that I thought about that postman ringing twice. I would go up there several more times, telling my wife back in Ventura that I had a big case that needed my personal attention and since she was used to me going on extended trips I got away with it, still to this day she doesn’t have a clue that I was sleeping in some out of the way motel with Lana half the time I went up north. At first Lana cold-shouldered me, was pleasant but distance. Cecil on the other hand was tickled pink that a big-time Los Angeles County D.A. was frequenting his establishment, said it gave the place some class. One day when Cecil was out back in their house I flat-out asked her to go to dinner with me. Without a missed step she said yes. Asked, no told, Cecil that I had asked her to dinner like it was to some big time political event. He said sure. No problem. From that moment on pure evil, murder, murder most foul was all I could think of for one Cecil Kellaway. Done.

Done too was any pretense by Lana that she cared anything at all for Cecil, told me before I even had formulated my plan fully that she wanted to be rid of Cecil, that she wanted to run the diner on her own or maybe start a gin mill on the premises, make it a roadhouse with all the booze, gambling, whores and boys anybody wanted. I would be the cover for all the action. I told her Cecil had to go, and that I had a plan to do him in. Was she in or out? In a thousand percent was the way she put it. A few days later right in the diner I laid out the plan I had schemed up while Cecil was on the grill flipping hamburgers. We needed a third guy, some drifter, some guy who was on the bum but who still had a hard on for women (some bums, hoboes, tramps between the booze and dope and living the life don’t give a damn about women except in some drunken dream thinking of their Phoebe Snow, that’s what they called it anyway from what guys in the drunk tank told me when I first started out and the booze got to them so they saw some image of some fresh looking gal from long ago who had turned them over).

She had to persuade Cecil to hire the guy to work the gas station part of the business. I knew that would be no problem once she got her claws into him, or dangled the idea of increased profits from auto repair work in front of him. (In the end it would be the profits and not her claws that won him over). I would find the guy even if it took some time as I expected it to, the fall guy as it would turn out, whom Lana would make a play for and get him so bothered by her that he would easily come to the same conclusion that I had. Murder, murder most foul. Cecil was doomed. Lana was non-plussed by the plan, thought it over for about one minute and agreed that it had to be done. The only qualm she had was how she was going to get off a murder rap if she was part of the conspiracy to murder Cecil. I told her I had that worked out but let’s get the guy first because that would determine which way we went with it. Then coyly Lana, as if to get me all heated up, said she would probably have to sleep with the guy, have him all knotted up in her sex if he was going to fall for what he would think was her, their plan. Said just as coyly that she would be thinking of me while she was doing whatever the fall guy wanted with her. That burned me up alright but I had already assumed she would have to do whatever kinky sex things she knew, and she knew plenty, to get him to tumble but I was so far gone on her that it was a small price to pay to have her all to myself when everything was settled.

Finding a guy who fit what we needed was a lot harder than even I thought it would be. I knew a bunch of guys, Bigsy Small, the con man who I had sent up three times for various scams, Nick at Night the burglar, Tiny Tim the second story man, to name a few, all good-looking guys who would have licked their chops and done whatever Lana asked but they were too closely associated with me to do us any good. Young rummies, bums, hoboes, tramps even after the war years were hard to find and moreover as I pointed out already getting them hopped up on a dame as opposed to some H or Johnny Walker Red would be a hard sell.

Then the solution came up all by itself one day. One Francis Chambers, Frank, whom I picked up hitchhiking on the Pacific Coast Highway around Malibu and who fit the build perfectly. An ex-soldier on the bum, like a lot of guys who once they got off the regular nine to five trip they were slated for by the war, got footloose and itching to move on, move on to something. Good looking guy even if shabbily dressed just off doing bracero work bringing in the harvest in the Imperial Valley. Along the way we got talking and he told me few things, some of them I knew were lies, which for me just then was manna from heaven, and few things like he had been in a mechanized division over in Europe which had my head spinning. He was heading to Frisco via Big Sur and Carmel where he knew guys and I told him I could take him as far as Point Magoo maybe a little farther. Yeah, a little farther.

A couple of hours later we were at the diner and I had a plan ready. A plan aided by the smell of Cecil’s stew which hit Frank for a loop and I could tell that he hadn’t had a square meal in a while. I offered to buy him one but he said he had dough. While I was filling up at the gas pumps Cecil came out to greet me and that is when I sprung my “motor troubles” spiel. Frank immediately took the bait, I opened the hood, and Frank told me in front of Cecil that I needed my valves looked at, and soon. Cecil asked Frank if he was looking for a job. He said no-then. After he got into the diner and seated at the counter with the look of food hunger on his face Lana came out from the kitchen and I could hear him smack his lips. That was all it took, all it took even when I told him Lana was Cecil’s wife. He did a double-take but must have figured that like him she had some story, some tale of woe that they would discuss under the sheets. Hooked.

Lana did her part to a tee. Once Cecil bought into the idea that Frank’s skills were a money maker for him he treated Frank almost like a son he was so afraid that Frank would leave him in the lurch. When I would come around and make small talk with Lana he would ask her what gives, and she would answer that we were up and up friends just like I was with Cecil. Then she put the chill on him after that first couple of provocative moves when she would serve him diner in the back of the house kitchen. One time he half-grabbed and asked what gives, she couldn’t love that has been Cecil. She dismissed him with some bullshit about Cecil being her life-saver, a guy who took her out of the sewer, and get this, she was not going to give that up for some two-bit stranger who might be gone tomorrow. Yeah, she was a beaut. After that all she would do is give sly meaningful peeks and then turn her head and continue the deep freeze. She could tell, remember those generations of breeding, that genes stuff, he was gone on her and had to make her move after a couple of weeks or he really would fly the coop. One day, no night, as they were closing up, Nick was away with his drinking buddies from the VFW hall, Lana asked Frank to help her with a faulty lightbulb (it was just loose but that was because she had turned it a couple of times for her purposes). They got so close Frank couldn’t help himself and Lana just kind of leaned into him. Bang.

They quickly closed the diner shut out the lights and headed to his room in back of the garage. Down into the cotton sheets they did go with Lana giving Frank the full works about how she couldn’t stop herself from giving herself to Frank and had been cold to see if it was the real thing. She said it was. For the next couple of weeks whenever Cecil was out, one night they had actually hit the sheets right after Cecil went to bed Lana telling Frank that she couldn’t wait. All the while Lana could see something was eating at him, I could tell it too and so one night Frank laid out his problems, begged her to run away to Frisco town with him. Get a divorce from Cecil and they could get married and do whatever they wanted.  Lana sitting right next to him on the bed half naked said Cecil would never give her a divorce and would cheapskate on other stuff spent his last nickel to hunt them down. So no go. No soap.

That only got Frank more in a lather and a few days later he sprung his plan on her. Cecil had to be gotten rid of and he had a plan that would make it look like an accident. Then they would be free. Lana fake thought a moment and then rushed into Frank’s arms and said could it really be done. No even a moment’s hesitation that she was agreeing to kill her husband. Cool as a cucumber was the way she explained her play to me later. Well you know Cecil Kellaway is long dead so you know that they finally gave him the big sent-off although they actually botched the thing the first time. She was supposed to bop him on the head one night when he came home drunk and make a play like he had been a victim of some robbery gone bad. Well as she went to bop him the drunken fool slipped on his greasy diner floor and wound up in the hospital for a couple of weeks. She and Frank made no pretenses that they weren’t shacking up while he was away but that only made the play sounder, drew Frank tighter to Lana’s skirt when I thought about it later although I was plenty heated up that they were screwing for an extra few weeks on my time.

The next time out they were successful. Or Lana was since the play was to grab Cecil when he was in another drunken stupor and decided that he just needed to take a bath to wash away his sins or something. It had been a hot sultry night like we get in Southern California even few weeks and besides washing those sins clean Cecil had the fan next to him. Frank had expertly frayed the wires and so when old Cecil reached for it with those shaky hands of his he got the biggest jolt of his life. Took out the power of half the houses in that section of the Pacific Coast Highway.

Naturally as a friend of Cecil’s and as a vigilant D.A. I had to make sure that this “accident” after the first one wasn’t some kind of dastardly deed. I went at it tooth and prongs or rather I had my first Assistant D.A. Lou Reed pay extra attention to this case, cleared his case load so he could work solely on the case once Cecil’s friends and customers started their little campaign against Lana and Frank who after a very brief period of “mourning” were seen looking very contented. Lou got enough evidence, with my help, to bring Lana and Frank in for questioning and eventually Lou got indictments on the pair for murder, murder one. They were going to hang for their crimes if justice was to be satisfied. That is where my plan that I had kept from Lana came into play. I had intentionally not told her what I had up my sleeve for fear that she would spill the plan to Frank some hot steamy cotton sheets night to show him how clever she was to get out from under. Also I wanted her to play her part as expertly as possible and with a little doubt in her mind once things heated up and her sweet ass was on the line that would go a long way to effectuating my plan.   

Here is the beauty of the law, Anglo-American law anyway, once they try you for a crime and you get off then they can’t try and convict you again for that same crime. You might know what it is called, you know double jeopardy. It works equally according to blind lady justice for the guilty and innocent in the interest of finality of judgment. My plan was to bring the pair to trial on murder one which like any other crime requires a degree of certainty of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to gain a verdict. I knew that Lou did not have enough hard evidence in hand to convict but I kept badgering him to go to trial with what he had using the excuse that the voters were looking for some action on our part. Furthermore at trial I made sure that we had a jury packed with men, older men who would not mind looking at Lana even in a plain jane suit, hair up and no makeup. I got that jury nine men, all over forty, and three women who would have convicted Mary, you know, Jesus’ mother. To add some further protection I made sure that our star expert witness, the old rum-pot Sid Lance, who in his day was the best guy around if you wanted a conviction, to testify that those frayed wires could have been just worn out. Giving those eye-googling men a reason to acquit Lana and Frank. When the “not guilty” verdict, the postman’s first ring came in I could hardly work up enough energy to show distain for the verdict. I let Lou face the reporters alone pleading a headache that would not go away. 

The jailbirds free they went back to the diner and started making plans to turn the place into a road house figuring to draw attention from people who were interested in the seamy side of life and had a certain amount of confidence in those who got off scot-free on a murder one conviction. That was according to our plan to keep Frank around until Lana and I fled to parts unknown with some money I had from my wife’s trust and she now from Cecil’s life insurance. We would figure out the rest later when we were safely away.

Then the roof fell in. Then my world went awry, went to hell. Frank after a hard day’s work building a patio next to the diner for those who wanted dinner before they got soaked at the gambling tables, taken to heaven by some bent whore, or jack-rolled for drinks told Lana that they should go for a drive to the ocean down by Malibu where the waves were spectacular at that time of year. He had been drinking whisky and Lana had had a few too before they left. On that hard curve stretch after Oxnard they went off the road and down the hill to the ocean. As fate would have it Lana was killed instantly, a broken neck. Frank said he thought as they were tumbling down the hill that he heard her talking about the postman calling again but that may have just been Frank bullshit, Frank’s lies. Frank came out without a scratch which in the end was his misdoing.

I was in a rage. All my plans had gone up in smoke and the idea that I would have to finish my days with a wife whom I could barely stand to be in the same room with drove me to distraction. Frank would pay for his life with his life. As you know double jeopardy prevented Frank from being convicted on that Cecil murder but I made sure, double sure that he was done in for on the Lana murder. That is right. I went after him with a vengeance and brought back Sid Lance to “prove” conclusively before that same kind of male dominated jury that the brake linings had been worked on. My angle was that Frank had gotten greedy after their acquittal and wanted everything for himself. Guilty, guilty as charged after about three hours’ deliberation. Frank was going to smell some funny gas in the big sent-off. Funny he didn’t even bother to wage a big appeal because as he told Father Lally that few hours before death stood at his door he heard that postman’s second ring. And now so have I.