‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’: Did Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange Really Have Sex On Camera?

Did Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange have real sex in The Postman Always Rings Twice, or not? The 1981 remake of one of Hollywood’s most famous film noir films is now streaming on HBO, and that means audiences are rediscovering The Postman Always Rings Twice and its most controversial scene: the hot and heavy kitchen table hook up.

Legend has it that the scene was so raw, so raucous, and so realistic that 1981 audiences couldn’t believe it wasn’t real. Adding to the mythos was the knowledge that director Bob Rafelson filmed it on a closed set. The only people in the room were him, Nicholson, Lange, and cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Nicholson and Lange claim it was just a highly-rehearsed simulation, but kitchen table truthers maintain otherwise. Heck, even my colleague Lea Palmieri thinks it really happened.

However, I have my doubts. Maybe I’ve been desensitized by hundreds of sex scenes on Netflix, HBO, Starz, Showtime, Hulu, Amazon, and their ilk, but I did not detect anything in this scene that suggests that Nicholson and Lange really did the deed. The scene is strategically edited to let your mind wander to imagery of swapped fluids and real penetration. The sound mix — full of huffing and puffing — even helps with the illusion. But we never see clothes pulled off. Lange’s underwear stays on, and we don’t even see Nicholson’s pants pulled down. Perhaps the foreplay was real, but I don’t believe the actors went all the way to home base.

However, it doesn’t even matter if Nicholson and Lange really had sex or not. The scene is still disturbing and dramatically scintillating. As a reimagining of one of Hollywood’s favorite film noirs, it dared to put sex front and center to the story. It was a controversial decision — the original film’s star Lana Turner told Phil Donahue that she refused to see “such pornographic trash” and that the 1981 version of the tale was “vicious” — but many believe that it marked the start of a new era of candidly erotic thrillers. In the years that followed, Hollywood produced Body Heat, Body Double, Jagged Edge, 9 1/2 Weeks, and Fatal Attraction.

The scene has also garnered controversy for the way it focuses on Jessica Lange’s pain and pleasure. The camera makes her the central figure in the scene and we hardly see Jack Nicholson’s face. In 1985, legendary film critic Gene Siskel used the scene as an example of a troubling trend: Hollywood’s penchant to strip down and shoot starlets either naked or in the throes of passion, while shying away from exposing male stars in the same way. Siskel was correct that this is a troubling trend — that persists to this day — but I think the specific critique is slightly unwarranted in The Postman Always Rings Twice. In fact, if you don’t make Cora the central focus, the scene loses all meaning whatsoever.

The kitchen table scene starts off as an attempted sexual assault that soon transforms into a key turning point for Lange’s character Cora. Up until this moment, Cora has been a cypher. She’s a beautiful young woman unhappily married to an older man. We watch her ordered around, lusted after, and belittled. There’s even a shot of Nicholson’s character Frank looking at her and her husband from the guest house. Their tense marital dance illuminated by electric light in an otherwise pitch black night. Nicholson is looking up at this display, and it gives Cora the trappings of being a lady locked in a tower.

We know who Frank Chambers is from the very beginning of A Postman Rings Twice. More than a drifter, he’s a thief. He covets what’s not his and greedily reaches for it. What he’s doing in the kitchen table scene is much of the same. He starts by trying to take what’s not his: Cora. She fights him off at first. And then, it’s not so much that she succumbs, but she takes over. She pushes him down where he can pleasure her, and then leads him into the kitchen. She’s the one who halts their encounter to clear the table and throw a sharp knife to the floor. The next thing she does is beckon him: “Come on..”

The kitchen table scene is about sinning. It’s a moment full of greed and lust. But we’re also watching Cora cross a threshold. She does more than consent to the sex. She becomes an accomplice to Frank’s seedy way of life. Nowhere is this more aptly represented but in the scene’s extended shot on Lange’s exposed underwear. At first, we see Nicholson grabbing at Lange’s private parts, and then she pushes him away. Then she touches herself, and then guides him back, showing him what she wants. Yes, it’s an incredibly raw depiction of a woman being sexually stimulated, but it’s a surprisingly direct metaphor for the power dynamics of the scene. (And okay, I think this part of the sex scene is real. You got me there.)

Ultimately, the question you should be asking about the kitchen table scene isn’t “was it real or not?” but did it feel real? Does Cora’s desperation realistically boil over in the heat of an illicit embrace? Does Frank successfully make a case for himself as a lover? Do we believe that these two people will go to dangerous lengths for a sliver of satisfaction? The answer to those questions is a resounding yes, and if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t still be so fixated upon it 37 years later.

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Where to Stream The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)