Too Late for Tears (1949)

Director:

Byron Haskin

Writers:

Roy Huggins (screenplay)
Roy Huggins (serial)

Release Date:

13 August 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir | Mystery

Tagline:

That's just to remind you... you're in a tough racket now!

Plot:

Through a fluke circumstance a ruthless woman stumbles across a suitcase filled with $60,000, and she is determined to hold onto it even it if means murder.

Plot Keywords:

Fall From Balcony | Fate | Boat | War Buddy | Suspicion

Cast

Lizabeth Scott	...	Jane Palmer
Don DeFore	...	Don Blake
Dan Duryea	...	Danny Fuller
Arthur Kennedy	...	Alan Palmer
Kristine Miller	...	Kathy Palmer
Barry Kelley	...	Lt. Breach

Also Known As:

Killer Bait (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) (1952) | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #13539) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Hunt Stromberg Productions

Trivia:

Roy Huggins wrote the screenplay, which is based on his "Saturday Evening Post" serial.

Quotes:

Danny Fuller: You going to take me back to shore or do I swim?
Jane Palmer: You move and I'll shoot you and say you killed my husband.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Spartan (2004)

an ordinary woman (lizabeth scott) turns into a film noir femme fatale after she finds herself at the wrong place at the wrong time

In the earliest days of TV, local channels used to fill up all their excess time with low-budget films from indie companies, as the 'majors' initially refused to sell or lease their product to what they considered (at the time) a mortal enemy - the small screen, which threatened to keep their regular customers at home. So for those of us who grew up during the fifties, much of our evening time was spent watching the cheaply made films from the thirties and forties, which - for all we knew at the time - were the important releases of that era. One of the most oft telecast films was Too Late For Tears, a turgid but in many ways fascinating B-budget noir that can't compare to the classics of that genre (this is no Big Sleep, mind you) but never fails to interest a viewer. Perhaps that's because the plot is so unique. Ordinarily, as in The Maltese Falcon and dozens of other noirs, the femme fatale is up to no good from the moment we meet here, and hails from a strange netherworld of dirty money and tawdry eroticism. Here, Lizabeth Scott plays a normal everyday suburban style woman who likely has never even received a parking ticket. But when she an her husband (Arthur Kennedy) find themselves on a lonely stretch of highway at night, a car zips buy and throws a bag of money into theirs - the passerby was expecting someone else, and tossed the loot into the wrong car. The husband wants to turn the money over to the police, but something ignites in the woman - she literally explodes before our eyes into the most deadly femme fatale of all, made all the more alluring by Scott's butch/androgynous sex appeal. The casting is all wrong - Don De Fore, who shows up as a tough guy, should've been the husband, with Arthur Kennedy in Don's role - but there's a great part for Dan Duryea as a sleazy character who falls under Liz's hypnotic spell. A contrived ending hurts the impact, but for noir completists, this is one you have (despite its flaws) to see.