Back in 1934 James M. Cain wrote an exciting noval about passion, murder, a bum, and a girl who "really wasn't any raving beauty" but who had a sulky look to her. Now "The Postman Always Rings Twice" is here in the movies, with sheer quantity of kisses pinch-hitting for passion and Lana Turner for the sulky, Mexican-looking woman. Murder and the bum more nearly receive their due, the latter at the hands of John Garfield, but in no way does the picture generate the speed and intensity of the book.

For once, don't blame Hollywood censorship. Cain's super-sexed passages were the weakest parts of his story, and their removal is not responsible for the animated skeleton that MGM, has produced. Rather it is the inexplicable changes that have been made in the structure of the novel, changes that confuse and obscure the basic thread of love, changes that transform a dynamic series of events into an almost comically catastrophic succession of messes.

Like "Double Indemnity" (also based on a Cain yarn), "Postman" involves the extra-curricular love affair of a married woman, the murder of the husband by wife and lover, and the net of justice that ensnares them. But where Barbara Stanwyck clearly was a woman powerless in the grip of passion, Lana Turner plays a peculiarly ill-defined character, driven in conflicting directions by muddled motives. Nor is Garfield, while more suitably cast, given a better organized role. The smaller parts are much neater; Cecil Kellaway as the husband and Hume Cronyn, as a lawyer who gets Miss Turner and Garfield out of their first major jam, give excellent performances.

Garfield and Turner have done as much for this hodge-podge as any two mis-cast screensters can accomplish in one film. "Postman," if it hadn't been so thoroughly "improved" between story and script, would have come closer to acclaim as a first-rate movie. J.R.