The Postman Always Rings Twice (1982)

ACT ONE happens in and around the Twin Oaks Tavern, a roadside sandwich joint like a million others in California. The last scene happens on the road to Santa Barbara. It is 1934.

1. Prologue.
2. Frank arrives at Twin Oaks. Traveling Blues.
3. Frank gets acquainted with Nick and Cora; he gets a meal and a job. Nick’s song.
4. Frank and Cora make it and get the chips off their shoulders. Twin themes: The hashhouse and the road.
5. Interlude: “Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars: it was like being in church’.’
6. Black Comedy: the foiled murder.
7. Cora won’t leave; Frank does.
8. Frank’s Road Song. But he can’t stay away.
9. The prodigal returns. Confrontation: the red kimono.
10. The murder and the echo. Nick gets his; Frank goes over the cliff with Nick and the car.

ACT TWO happens at the D.A.’s office, the County Jail, then back at Twin Oaks.

11. Frank in the hospital with broken bones; the D.A. is determined to get him, or Cora, or both.
12. Cora and Frank flimflammed by Sackett and Katz. Cats are unlucky for Frank- and Sackett and Katz are aural anagrams of each other.
13. The insurance companies take the cheaper way out, and Cora and Frank are off the hook. Katz’s aria; he wins his bet with Sackett.
14. Interlude: Return to Twin Oaks.
15. Cora and Frank face it; the Mountain Duet.
16. Interlude: the ending of something. “The Devil got his money’s worth that night’.’
17. Frank’s dream. The months go by. The need to escape from each other.
18. Black Comedy: Kennedy and blackmail.
19. The last duet: violence and reconciliation.
The baby.
20. Death and Finale: Cora dead. The death house for Frank. No stay. The postman always rings twice.

Colin Graham