title

In the book its sort of vague, but in the movie he really spells it out for you. The postman always makes sure you get whats comming to you, even if he has to ring twice. So even though they get out of the murder wrap the first time, they are truely doomed, and they get what they "deserve" when cora dies in the car accedent and her death is put on frank as a murder.

happen to be doing a report on the film/novel so briefly after posting a response on the board i came accross this from wikipedia:

The title is something of a non sequitur; nowhere in the novel does a postman character appear, nor is one even alluded to. When asked for an explanation, Cain stated that the manuscript had been rejected by 13 publishers prior to being accepted for publication on his 14th attempt, so that when the publisher asked him what he wanted the work to be entitled he drew on this experience and suggested The Postman Always Rings Twice.

[edit] William Marling explanation

William Marling, author of Hard-Boiled Fiction, writes that the title may come from one of the most sensational news stories of 1927 and 1928: the trial and execution of "Tyger Woman" Ruth Snyder and her lover Judd Gray for the murder of her husband Albert. The story was publicised by the east coast press, culminating with a photo of Ruth Snyder's electrocution being printed in the New York Daily News. Marling's full account is available at an external link; see below.

Snyder, an attractive thirty-one-year-old blonde, began an extramarital affair with Gray. In court, Gray asserted that Snyder insisted her husband was abusive, and that Gray then volunteered to kill him.

Marling notes that Cain's could have borrowed the title from a statement of Snyder's: she took out a life insurance policy on her husband, but ordered the postman to deliver the payment notices only to her. He was to ring the door bell twice as a signal.

[edit] Roy Hoopes explanation

However Roy Hoopes, in his biography of Cain (Cain: The Biography of James M. Cain), offers an entirely different explanation. According to Hoopes, Cain and his publisher had been going back and forth over a title, neither of them liking the other's suggestions, when Cain and screenwriter Vincent Lawrence finally came up with The Postman Always Rings Twice. Hoopes' account says that title was derived when Lawrence noted that amid the anxiety of awaiting news on a submitted manuscript, he would at times specifically try to avoid hearing the doorbell ring. However the tactic proved unsuccessful because the postman would always ring again to ensure he was heard. This caused Cain to think of an English or Irish saying which stated that a postman will always knock twice in announcing his presence. Lawrence and Cain then agreed that the postman ringing twice was metaphorically suited to Frank's situation at the end of the novel.

With the "postman" being God, or Fate, the "delivery" meant for Frank was his own death as just retribution for murdering Nick. Frank had missed the first "ring" when he initially got away with that killing. However, the postman rang again, and this time the ring was heard, when Frank was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora, and then sentenced to die for the crime.

In the 1946 film, Frank explicitly explains the title in the terms offered in the Hoopes biography of Cain.