Talk:James M. Cain

Untitled
Cain had a lengthy journalistic career. Added some information on that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.205.190.22 (talk) 17:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

It's interesting to note that Cain really does fade after his California novels, most notably Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity and, of course, The Postman Always Rings Twice. I would argue that when he gets simplistic, the storylines become uninteresting. The problem, of course, as with many writers who find success at one thing, is Cain had to continue being James M. Cain after those incredible and timely novels. With the exception of Love's Lovely Conterfiet and maybe Past all Dishonour, Cain's star seems to have eclipsed his legend. Just the same, these are important literary documents. Indeed, it was Tom Wolfe who suggested that if writers wished to learn how to write they should read Cain. I agree.

Romans noirs?
How much is this term actually used, at least in English? I see the obvious link to films noir, but is it a real, generally-understood English term deserving of an encyclopedia article? Rlquall 17:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Until this matter is solved, I guess a redirect to "hardboiled" (where "noir fiction" is discussed) will do. &lt;KF&gt; 23:45, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

In English "romans noirs" (sic) is an ungrammatical back formation based on "films noir" and "Série_noire".

Copyright problem
This article has been reverted by a bot to as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) This has been done to remove User:Accotink2's contributions as they have a history of extensive copyright violation and so it is assumed that all of their major contributions are copyright violations. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. VWBot (talk) 05:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The edits in this case consisted of moving one source citation and adding an external link, so there isn't anything that could infringe copyright. Therefore, I've reverted the bot and restored the edits in question. --RL0919 (talk) 14:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Out of the Past
Although Cain did write a screenplay, I'm pretty sure his version was rejected. Will confirm with reference — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.148.139.132 (talk) 14:12, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Films
The intrductory text in this section states that "The following films were adapted from Cain's novels, screenplays and stories," but some of them listed are clearly not based on his works (e.g., Bridge of San Luis Rey). The text needs revision to account for this. Jwicklatz (talk) 23:12, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Insurance executive?
I seem to remember having read that Cain had worked as an insurance executive (his novels "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice" are both based on insurance fraud schemes; in "Postman", the deals struck by insurance companies are especially cynical). Can someone verify that with a reference? BMJ-pdx (talk) 15:52, 4 January 2021 (UTC)