The film was screened out of competition at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. Upon release, the film was poorly received by many critics, who felt that the remake of the 1946 film of the same name was wasted. They also believed the ending was "very weak" compared to the original film. They also criticized that the meaning of the title is not explained in the remake, which led to confusion among viewers. Jack Nicholson later said "If you ran a question through this industry about "The Postman Always Rings Twice", most people would surmise that it wasn’t successful. That is not true. I know it made money, because I received overages, so it must’ve grossed about as much as "Chinatown" and much more than "Carnal Knowledge". But people are anxious to disqualify it."