The Novel Always Gets Filmed Twice

Now that HBO's rendition of Mildred Pierce is starting to get a buzz, people are talking about James M. Cain again for the first time in a number of years. Cain was a journalist and novelist who was born in the previous century, and by 1910 had begun writing for newspapers, pulp publishing houses, and in Hollywood, until his death in 1977. While he published a number of books throughout his lifetime, his early work is regarded as his best, which covers the period throughout the '30's and early '40's.

His most well known novels were written in a Hard Boiled style that was most common in the detective and gangland novels of Raymond Chandler & Dashiell Hammet. The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce are the most well known, as each were made for Hollywood in the '40's. All are set in the gritty world of the '30's, and each make great reads to accompany the work we'll be doing in class. While the first two are quite short, and fit a Noir / Crime Fiction form more closely, Mildred Pierce is unusual in that it is told from one of the (somewhat) innocent ancillary characters on the fringes of that world. One imagines that Mildred is only a few steps away from entering a Hard Boiled novel, and yet rarely does. If you are enjoying the HBO re-make, or the '40's original with Joan Crawford, then you really should give the novel a chance.