James M. Cain (1892-1977)

James Mallahan Cain (July 1, 1892 – October 27, 1977) was an American journalist and crime writer. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labelling, he is usually associated with the hard-boiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the roman noir.

Cain was born into an Irish Catholic family in Annapolis, Maryland. The son of an educator and a failed opera singer, he inherited a love of music from his mother, but his hopes of a career as a singer were thwarted when she told him that his voice was not good enough. After graduating from Washington College, where his father, James W. Cain, he was drafted into the United States Army and spent the final year of World War I in France writing for an army magazine.

Upon returning to the United States, Cain continued working as a journalist. He briefly served as the managing editor of The New Yorker and later worked mainly on screenplays and novels. His first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, was published in 1934. Two years later Double Indemnity (1936) was serialized in Liberty magazine. Cain made use of his love of music, particularly the opera, in at least three of his novels: Serenade (1937), about an American opera singer who loses his voice and, after spending part of his life south of the border, re-enters the United States illegally with a Mexican prostitute; Mildred Pierce (1941), in which, as part of the subplot, the surviving daughter of a successful businesswoman trains as an opera singer; and Career in C Major, a short semi-comic novel about the unhappy husband of an aspiring opera singer, who unexpectedly discovers that he has a better voice than she does. In his novel The Moth (1948), music is important in the life of the main character. Cain’s fourth wife, Florence Macbeth, was a retired opera singer.

Cain spent many years in Hollywood working on screenplays, but his name appears as a screenwriter in the credits of only two films: Stand Up and Fight (1939) and Gypsy Wildcat (1944), for which he is one of three credited screenwriters. For Algiers (1938) Cain received a credit for “additional dialogue”, and he had story credits for other films.

Cain continued writing up to his death, at the age of 85. He published many novels from the late 1940s onward, but none achieved the financial and popular success of his earlier books. (Source: Excerpts from Wikipedia)

On a personal note, Double Indemnity is much better than The Postman Always Ring Twice, but I couldn’t finish the reading of Mildred Pierce, though I’ve seen the film. From then on, my interest for his novels has faded. Anyhow, if only for these two novels, Double Indemnity and The Postman, James M. Cain deserves a place of honour among the crime writers of his time.

Further reading:

• Cain Was More Than Able: James M. Cain on the Occasion of his Birthday, July 1, 2006 by J. Kingston Pierce.
• James M. Cain, The Art of Fiction No. 69, interviewed by David Zinsser at The Paris Review.
• Two essays on Cain by William Marling

From Wikipedia: Double Indemnity is a 1943 crime novel, written by American journalist-turned-novelist James M. Cain. It was first published in serial form in Liberty magazine in 1936 and then was one of “three long short tales” in the collection Three of a Kind (together with Career in C Major and The Embezzler [first published as Money and the Woman, in Liberty magazine, 1938]). Double Indemnity later served as the basis for the film of the same name in 1944, adapted for the screen by the novelist Raymond Chandler and directed by Billy Wilder. Cain based the novella on a 1927 murder perpetrated by a married woman in Queens, New York, and her lover, whose trial he attended while working as a journalist in New York. In that crime, Ruth Snyder persuaded her boyfriend, Judd Gray, to kill her husband, Albert, after having him take out a big insurance policy with a double indemnity clause. The murderers were quickly identified, arrested and convicted.

After Paramount purchased the rights to the novella for Wilder, the next step was a screenplay. Wilder first choice, James M. Cain himself, was working for another studio and unavailable. Producer Joseph Sistrom, an avid reader and an admirer of The Big Sleep, then suggested Raymond Chandler. Initially, Wilder and Chandler had intended to retain as much of Cain’s original dialogue as possible. It was Chandler who first realized that the dialogue from the novella did not translate well to the screen. Wilder disagreed and was annoyed that Chandler was not putting more of it into the script. To settle it, Wilder hired a couple of contract players from the studio to read passages of Cain’s original dialogue aloud. To Wilder’s astonishment, Chandler was right, and in the end, the movie’s cynical and provocative dialogue was more Chandler and Wilder than it was Cain.

Cain was very pleased with the way his book turned out on the screen. After seeing the picture half a dozen times, he was quoted as saying “It’s the only picture I ever saw made from my books that had things in it I wish I had thought of. Wilder’s ending was much better than my ending, and his device for letting the guy tell the story by taking out the office dictating machine – I would have done it if I had thought of it.”

(Source: Facsimile Dust Jackets LLC. Alfred A. Knopf (USA), 1943)

A true crime masterpiece, and highly acclaimed 1940s movie
Double Indemnity is the classic tale of an evil woman motivated by greed who corrupts a weak man motivated by lust.
Walter Huff is an insurance investigator like any other until the day he meets the beautiful and dangerous Phyllis Nirdlinger and falls under her spell. Together they plot to kill her husband and split the insurance. It’ll be the perfect murder . . . (Source: Orion Books)

Double Indemnity has been reviewed, among others, at The Complete Review, JacquiWine’s Journal, Mystery File, Vintage Pop Fictions, Tipping My Fedora and Mysteries Ahoy!

Review: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

Esta entrada es bilingüe, para ver la versión en castellano desplazarse hacia abajo

Orion, 2005. Paperback edition. First published in the United States of America in 1934 by Alfred A. Knopf. Inc. ISBN: 978-0-7528-6436-5. Pages 128.

The Postman Always Rings Twice is James M Cain’s debut novel. It was published in 1934 when Cain was forty-two years of age. At the time, it was banned in Boston, as it was considered that contained an explosive mixture of violence and eroticism. Now-a-days is a benchmark of the ‘roman noir’. The Postman Always Rings Twice served to established James M. Cain as an important novelist for his ruthless and gloomy vision of life in the United States. It is said, that Albert Camus used it as a model for his novel The Stranger.

The story is told in the first person by Frank Chambers, a jobless drifter, who narrates the fatal attraction he feels for Cora Papadakis, the wife of a Greek immigrant, the owner of a service station and of a roadside restaurant in California, and how they both become lovers, united by their passion and ambition. But they do have trouble to get rid of Cora’s husband and they must count as well with the inscrutable fate; that postman who always rings twice.

Although for my taste, it is not at the same level as Double Indemnity, see my review here, I do believe that The Postman Always Rings Twice is still a worthwhile read, given its particular significance within the ‘roman noir’ genre. Particularly, the characters in the book have become true archetypes and have expanded far beyond the limits of the genre.

My rating: A (I loved it)

James Mallahan Cain (1892 – 1977) was a first-rate writer of American hard-boiled crime fiction. Born in Baltimore, the son of the president of Washington College, Cain began his career as a reporter, serving in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I and writing for The Cross of Lorraine, the newspaper of the 79th Division. He returned from the war to embark on a literary career that included a professorship at St. John’s College in Annapolis and a stint at The New Yorker as managing editor before he went to Hollywood as a script writer. Cain’s famous first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, was published in 1934 when he was forty-two, and became an instant sensation. It was tried for obscenity in Boston and was said by Albert Camus to have inspired his own book, The Stranger. The infamous novel was staged in 1936, and filmed in 1946 directed by Tay Garnett, starring Lana Turner and John Garfield, and in 1981, directed by Bob Rafelson, starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. The story of a young hobo who has an affair with a married woman and plots with her to murder her husband and collect his insurance, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a benchmark of classic crime fiction and film noir. Two of Cain’s other novels, Mildred Pierce (1941) and Double Indemnity (1943), were also made into film noir classics. In 1974, James M. Cain was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Cain published eighteen books in all and was working on his autobiography at the time of his death. (Source: Penguin Random House)

The Postman Always Rings Twice has been reviewed at The Complete Review, Crime Fiction Lover, Spinetingler Magazine, Yet Another Crime Fiction Blog, Shotsmag, and A Penguin a week,

Orion books

Black Lizard

El cartero siempre llama dos veces de James M. Cain

El cartero siempre llama dos veces es la primera novela de James M Cain. Fue publicada en el 1934 cuando Caín tenía cuarenta y dos años de edad. En ese momento, fue prohibida en Boston, ya que se consideró que contenía una mezcla explosiva de violencia y erotismo. Hoy en día es un referente de la ‘novela negra’. El cartero siempre llama dos veces sirvió para consagrar a James M. Cain como un novelista importante por su visión despiadada y sombría de la vida en los Estados Unidos. Se dice, que Albert Camus la utilizó como modelo para su novela El Extranjero.

La historia está contada en primera persona por Frank Chambers, un vagabundo sin trabajo, que nos narra la atracción fatal que siente por Cora Papadakis, la esposa de un inmigrante griego, propietario de una estación de servicio y de un restaurante de carretera en California, y cómo ambos se convierten en amantes, unidos por su pasión y ambición. Pero ellos tienen problemas para deshacerse del esposo de Cora y deben contar además con el inescrutable destino, ese cartero que siempre llama dos veces.

Aunque para mi gusto, no está al mismo nivel que Pacto de sangre, ver mi reseña aquí, considero que El cartero siempre llama dos veces sigue siendo una lectura muy recomendable, dada su especial importancia dentro del género de ‘novela negra’. En particular, los personajes del libro se han convertido en verdaderos arquetipos y se han extendido más allá de los límites del género.

Mi valoración: A (me encantó)

James Mallahan Caín (1892-1977) fue un escritor de primera fila de novela negra americana. Nacido en Baltimore, hijo del presidente de la universidad de Washington, Caín comenzó su carrera como reportero, sirviendo en la Fuerza Expedicionaria de Estados Unidos en la Primera Guerra Mundial escribiendo para The Cross of Lorraine, el periódico de la 79º División. Regresó de la guerra para embarcarse en una carrera literaria que incluyó un puesto de profesor en la universidad de San Juan en Annapolis y una temporada en The New Yorker como jefe de redacción antes de establecerse en Hollywood como guionista. La famosa primera novela de Caín, El cartero siempre llama dos veces, fue publicada en 1934, cuando tenía cuarenta y dos años, y se convirtió en una éxito inmediato. Fue juzgado por obscenidad en Boston y según dijo Albert Camus le sirvió de inspiración para escribir su libro, El Extranjero. La infame novela fue convertida en obra de teatro en el 1936, y fue llevada al cine en 1946 dirigida por Tay Garnett, con Lana Turner y John Garfield como protagonistas, y en 1981, dirigida por Bob Rafelson, y protagonizada por Jack Nicholson y Jessica Lange. La historia de un joven vagabundo que tiene un romance con una mujer casada y planifica con ella asesinar a su esposo y cobrar su seguro, El cartero siempre llama dos veces es todo un referente de la novela negra clásica y del cine negro. Otras dos novelas de Cain, Mildred Pierce (1941) y Double Indemnity (1943) estrenada como Perdición en España, también se convietieron en clásicos del cine negro. En 1974, James M. Cain fue galardonado con el Premio de Gran Maestro por los Escritores de Misterio de América. Caín publicó un total de dieciocho libros y estaba trabajando en su autobiografía en el momento de su muerte. (Fuente: Penguin Random House)

RBA

Review: Double Indemnity by James M. Cain

Esta entrada es bilingüe, para ver la versión en castellano desplazarse hacia abajo

My contribution to Rich’s year in crime fiction meme (this month is 1936) over at Past Offences and don’t forget to visit the wrap up page at Past Offences by the end of April.

Orion, 2005. Format: Paperback. Published serially in 1936. ISBN: 978-0-7528-6427-3. Page count 144.

I finished reading Double Indemnity when I still had fresh in my memory the film based on this novel, directed by Billy Wilder in 1944 with screenplay written by Wilder himself together with Raymond Chandler; starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Edward G. Robinson. See my post here. Except for the ending, the film reflects faithfully the storyline of the novel. The plot can be summarised briefly as follows: Walter Huff, an experienced insurance agent, visits one day the house of a wealthy businessman called Nirdlinger in order to renew his car insurance policy. Mr Nidlinger is not at home but Walter is received by his young and attractive wife, Phyllis Nirdlinger. During the course of their conversation Phyllis becomes interested in a life insurance for her husband and, although Walter suspects the worst, he ends up seduced by the charms of Phyllis. Together they plan the murder of her husband after ensuring that he has signed, without knowing it, a life insurance policy with a double indemnity clause in the event of a railway accident.

Double Indemnity first appeared in serial form in 1936 for Liberty magazine and was finally published in book form in 1943, just one year before being brought to the big screen. James M. Cain based his novella on a 1927 murder perpetrated by a married Queens, New York, woman and her lover, whose trial he attended while working as a journalist in New York. In that crime, Ruth Snyder persuaded her boyfriend, Judd Gray, to kill her husband Albert after having him take out a big insurance policy with a double indemnity clause. The murderers were quickly identified, arrested and convicted. The front page photo of Snyder’s execution in the electric chair at Sing Sing has been called the most famous news photo of the 1920s (information taken from Wikipedia). Double Indemnity was James M Cain’s second novel, following his highly acclaimed novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1934.

I must acknowledge that Double Indemnity is the first book by James M. Cain that I’ve read, and I still wonder why it took me that long in having read one of his novels. In my view, this is a masterpiece. And, although I was familiar with the storyline having seen the film several times, I’ve felt captivated by his narrative style and for the way Cain is able to develop tension and suspense into the plot. I cannot fail to mention the significance of Cain’s novels in the birth and subsequent evolution of what we know today as ‘noir fiction’ or ‘roman noir’, understood as an independent genre to hardboiled fiction (see my post A first approach to the difference between hardboiled, noir fiction and crime fiction in Spanish). A must read for everyone, and not only for lovers of the genre.

My rating: A+ (Don’t delay, get your hands on a copy of this book)

James Mallahan Cain (1892 – 1977) was a first-rate writer of American hard-boiled crime fiction. Born in Baltimore, the son of the president of Washington College, Cain began his career as a reporter, serving in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I and writing for The Cross of Lorraine, the newspaper of the 79th Division. He returned from the war to embark on a literay career that included a professorship at St. John’s College in Annapolis and a stint at The New Yorker as managing editor before he went to Hollywood as a script writer. Cain’s famous first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, was published in 1934 when he was forty-two, and became an instant sensation. It was tried for obscenity in Boston and was said by Albert Camus to have inspired his own book, The Stranger. The infamous novel was staged in 1936, and filmed in 1946 and 1981. The story of a young hobo who has an affair with a married woman and plots with her to murder her husband and collect his insurance, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a benchmark of classic crime fiction and film noir. Two of Cain’s other novels, Mildred Pierce (1941) and Double Indemnity (1943), were also made into film noir classics. In 1974, James M. Cain was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Cain published eighteen books in all and was working on his autobiography at the time of his death (Black Lizard).

Double Indemnity has been reviewed at The Complete Review, JacquiWine’s Journal, Scott D Parker and Yet Another Crime Fiction Blog among others.

Orion books

Black Lizard

Pacto de sangre de James M. Cain

Terminé de leer Pacto de sangre cuando aún tenía fresca en mi memoria la película basada en esta novela, Perdición, dirigida por Billy Wilder en 1944 con guión escrito por el propio Wilder junto con Raymond Chandler; protagonizada por Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray y Edward G. Robinson. Ver mi entrada aquí. A excepción del final, la película refleja fielmente el argumento de la novela. La trama se puede resumir brevemente como sigue: Walter Huff, un experimentado agente de seguros, visita un día la casa de un rico empresario llamado Nirdlinger con el fin de renovar el seguro de su coche. El Sr. Nidlinger no se encuentra en casa, pero Walter es recibido por su joven y atractiva mujer, Phyllis Nirdlinger. Durante el curso de su conversación Phyllis se interesa por un seguro de vida para su marido y, aunque Walter sospecha lo peor, termina seducido por los encantos de Phyllis. Juntos planean el asesinato de su marido después de asegurarse de que ha firmado, sin saberlo, un seguro de vida con una cláusula de doble indemnización en caso de sufrir un accidente ferroviario.

Pacto de sangre apareció por primera vez en forma de entregas en la revista Liberty en 1936 y fue finalmente publicada en formato de libro en 1943, justo un año antes de ser llevada a la gran pantalla. James M. Cain basó su novela en un asesinato perpetrado en 1927 por una mujer casada de Queens, Nueva York, y por su amante, a cuyo juicio asistió mientras trabajaba como periodista en Nueva York. En ese delito, Ruth Snyder convenció a su amante, Judd Gray, para que matara a su marido Albert después de contratar una importante póliza de vida, que incluía una cláusula de doble indemnización. Los asesinos fueron rápidamente identificados, arrestados y condenados. La foto en primera página de la ejecución de Snyder en la silla eléctrica en Sing Sing ha sido considerada la foto periodística más famosa de la década de los 20 (información tomada de Wikipedia). Pacto de sangre es la segunda novela de James M Cain, después de su famosa novela El cartero siempre llama dos veces, 1934.

Debo reconocer que Pacto de sangre es el primer libro de James M. Cain que he leído, y todavía me pregunto por qué he tardado tanto tiempo en haber leído una de sus novelas. En mi opinión, esta es una obra maestra. Y, a pesar de que estaba familiarizado con la historia después de haber visto la película varias veces, me he sentido cautivado por su estilo narrativo y por la forma como Cain es capaz de desarrollar la tensión y el suspense en la trama. No puedo dejar de mencionar la importancia de las novelas de Cain en el nacimiento y la posterior evolución de lo que hoy conocemos como ‘género noir’ o novela negra, entendido como un género independiente a la ficción hardboiled (ver mi entrada  A first approach to the difference between hardboiled, noir fiction and crime fiction in Spanish). Una lectura obligatoria para todo el mundo, y no sólo para los amantes del género.

Mi valoración: A+ (No se demore, consiga un ejemplar de este libro)

James M. Cain (Annapolis, Maryland, 1892 – University Park, Maryland, 1977) Es uno de los autores más emblemáticos del género negro estadounidense. Novelista y periodista, comenzó a escribir para el ejército norteamericano durante los últimos días de la Primera Guerra Mundial, en la que participó como voluntario en 1918. Finalizada la guerra, Cain se ganó la vida como periodista en varios rotativos de Nueva York, aunque al poco tiempo pasó a escribir guiones cinematográficos y, seguidamente, relatos breves y novelas. Autor de numerosos éxitos editoriales, su obra cumbre sigue siendo El cartero siempre llama dos veces (SN, 63), llevada al cine en varias ocasiones (RBA).

RBA

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