Re: RARA-AVIS: Double Indemnity

From: david david ( davividavid@yahoo.com)
Date: 22 Sep 2006


I just saw Viscontti's 1942 adaptation of Postman
(Ossessione) for the first time, & i liked it much better than either of the American film versions. What was interesting was that the book isolated most of the action from social context, but in Visonti's version, the characters are constantly observed and judged in the Italian village cafe & streets, making it a sort of hybrid neorealist/noir.

i have read most of Cain's novels, and I agree that Dbl. Indemnity is nowhere near Postman in impact. Among his other early novels, I found things to like in Serenade and also in Love's Lovely Counterfeit, his best effort in the 3rd person, i think. but none of those after Postman is as good.

--- Michael Robison < miker_zspider@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Mark wrote:
>
> Although I enjoyed the book well enough, it was
> nowhere near as great as Postman, which I also
> re-read
> not too long ago.
>
> ************
> I agree. It's not in the same class. Postman is a
> powerful and vivid work. A classic piece of
> literature. It spoke of the world.
>
> I had no empathy with any of the characters in
> Double
> Indemnity, a serious flaw as far as I'm concerned.
> It
> didn't seem to me that Cain was doing anything more
> than going through the motions with the plot.
>
> miker
>
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