Too Late for Tears (1949)

Housewives can get awfully bored sometimes.

Too late for Tears is directed by Byron Haskin and written by Roy Huggins. It stars Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea and Arthur Kennedy. Music is by Dale Butts and cinematography by William C. Mellor.

One night Alan and Jane Palmer (Kennedy & Scott) are driving to a party out Hollywood way, when all of a sudden someone in another car tosses a suitcase filled with cash into the back seat of their car. So begins a tale of greed, betrayal and murder...

Money is poison.

Low budget be damned, Too Late for Tears (AKA: Killer Bait) ends up being a film noir (in story terms) of some excellence. Banging the drum whilst singing that money be the root of all evil, Haskin (I Walk Alone) and Huggins (I Love Trouble) put Scott front and center as one of the ultimate femme fatale bitches. Jane Palmer is a cunning cat, it's perhaps not for nothing that Duryea's Danny Fuller pet names her as Tiger, for Palmer knows exactly what she wants, and now that she has the financial means and sees a way of elevating herself to the richer playing field, she literally will stop at nothing to keep it that way. Be it murder or her sexuality as a weapon, Palmer is in control - even as she takes the knuckles from the hapless Danny. It's a dynamite character and Scott has all the necessary requirements (sultry, blonde, angular bone structure) to make her work to maximum effect.

Around Scott there's much to enjoy as well. Duryea is perhaps a given in the sort of film noir role we just love him for, but also Kennedy as the foolish husband makes a telling impact. DeFore, as the character is written, has to play his cards close to his chest for much of the time, this often gives the sense that he has wandered into the wrong movie. It's a bit jarring at first, but once the plot ufurls in its entirety then it rounds out as a neat bit of performing. Bonus is Kristine Miller (Sorry, Wrong Number) as Alan Palmer's sister, Kathy. A lovely straight backed character of some warmth, it gives the viewers someone to hang their hopes on, a barely visible beacon of hope in a world full of lies and deceit. A fine performance from Miller, she should have had a bigger career in film.

Although the Los Angeles locations are utilised well, especially impressive given the tiny budget afforded the picture, film does lack potency in the surroundings. If ever a femme fatale character, one with men slowly being wrapped around her fingers, called for some gritty, dank & suspicious places to work out of, then this is it. William Mellor (The Naked Spur) puts his photographic talents to use at a boating lake, and brings some shadows to the characters in the various well lighted rooms that the plot plays out from, but the mood is not set at uneasy, a sense of foreboding to match the machinations of Jane Palmer. It's also 10 to 15 minutes too long, some flabby filler in the middle could have been trimmed, because the film does begin to creak in the final third as we approach the sneaky finale.

Nonetheless, the story has the aces up its sleeve, it's strong enough in substance and performed very well by the cast, marking it out as a film noir easily recommended to fans of that persuasion. 7.5/10

Sep 15, 2019

Lizabeth Scott ("Jane") stumbles on a case filled with cash. She takes it home and confides in husband Arthur Kennedy who promptly deposits it in the lost luggage at Grand Central station whilst they lay low and figure out what to do. She gets greedy and when he tries to rein her in, she goes boating with him; shoots him in an onboard tussle then sets about retrieving the loot and escaping alive... Dan Duryea is quite good as her drunken, unreliable, sidekick and Don DeFore sort of appears from nowhere are her ultimate nemesis. It is quite a decent crime noir, quite tense at time, but it is way too long, a little convoluted at times, and is really let down by a poor ending.

Jul 9, 2022