Lana Turner's midriff-baring shorts outfit in The Postman Always Rings Twice set a trend for women's fashions in the post-World War II era, bringing in shorts, a trend that never really went out of style.

Turner would always refer to The Postman Always Rings Twice as her favorite film and John Garfield as her favorite co-star. Garfield also considered the film his favorite.

In the new sexual permissiveness of the movie ratings years, director Bob Rafelson re-made the film in 1981 with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange as the lovers, John Colicos as her husband and Anjelica Huston as the woman who almost lures Nicholson away. Although allegedly shot as an X and cut to win an R rating, the remake prompted many critics to comment that the earlier version was more sexually charged and erotic by showing less but implying more through body language, facial expressions and suggestive dialogue.

Many critics thought Lawrence Kasdan had captured the spirit of James M. Cain's pulp fictions with Body Heat (1981), in which Kathleen Turner seduces crooked lawyer William Hurt into killing her husband (Richard Crenna) so she can collect on his insurance.

One of Lana Turner's scenes from The Postman Always Rings Twice was edited into Carl Reiner's 1982 film noir pastiche Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, starring Steve Martin.

In 1998, Hungarian director György Fehér helmed a re-make of The Postman Always Rings Twice in black and white. The film won six awards from Hungarian Film Week, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress (Ildikó Bánsági) and Best Actor (János Derzsi). It was titled Szenvedély, or "Passion" and played the Montreal, Toronto, Mar del Plata, Thessaloniki, Gothenburg and Istanbul Film Festivals, but has never been released in the U.S.

The title of the Turner-Garfield noir has inspired episode titles for such series as Moonlighting, Spin City and Sex and the City.

The title character played by David Carradine in Quentin Tarantino's two Kill Bill features claims to have been a sucker for blondes ever since seeing Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice.

by Frank Miller