Too Late for Tears (1949)

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

Director:

Byron Haskin

Writers:

Roy Huggins (screenplay), Roy Huggins (magazine serial)

Stars:

Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea

1 win.

Cast

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

Storyline

One night on a lonely highway, a man in a speeding car tosses a satchel of money meant for somebody else into Jane and Alan Palmer's convertible as they are heading down a mountain road to a party. When they open the satchel and see what's inside, Alan wants to turn it over to the police, but Jane, with a life of luxury now within reach, persuades him to hang onto it "for a while." Soon afterward, the Palmers are tracked down by one Danny Fuller, a sleazy character who claims the money is his. To hang on to the cash, Jane will need to exercise all her feminine wiles, even if it leads her to dangerous circumstances and criminal behavior.

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Plot Keywords:

femme fatale | money bag | money | bag | bagman | 

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Taglines:

The man who loves her is lucky... if he lives!

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jimmie Dodd, the leader of the original Disney Mouseketeers, appears as one of the car thieves right after Jane abandons the car on the beach. He's the one who gets into the driver's seat.

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Goofs

The entrance door of Alan and Jane Palmer's apartment does not have a peephole. However, most residential apartments have a peephole; therefore, the apartment was probably either built on a sound stage or is an office made to look like an apartment.

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Quotes

Danny Fuller: You know, tiger, I didn't know they made 'em as beautiful as you are, and as smart. Or as hard.

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Connections

Referenced in Choose Me (1984)

User Reviews

Lizabeth Scott tries her luck as unregenerate femme fatale in hard-boiled noir

Lizabeth Scott did her best remembered work in film noir (more than half of her only 21 screen credits fall within the noir cycle), and became one of its iconic faces. Rarely, however, was she called upon to play the fully-fledged femme fatale, and there's probably a reason for this: She couldn't bring off duplicity.

Her smile had no shadings into wry, or ironic, or smirky; it had but one setting – a fresh, guileless grin that lit up like a Christmas tree. F. Scott Fitzgerald (in his sad screenwriting days) observed of Joan Crawford that you couldn't give her a simple stage direction like `telling a lie' because then she'd give an impersonation of Benedict Arnold betraying West Point to the British. But Scott can't manage even that, which results in confusingly mixed signals when her characters are motivated by malice, like Coral Chandler in Dead Reckoning: Her smile keeps convincing us that she's on the up-and-up.

Her damn smile keeps switching on in Too Late For Tears, even though there's no doubt that she's one hard, cold case. She and husband Arthur Kennedy are bickering one night en route to a party in the Hollywood Hills when suddenly a suitcase crammed with cash lands in their roadster. He wants to turn it over to the police, but she persuades him to think it over, so they check the valise at Union Station. When she starts buying clothes and furs against the checked capital, it's clear she has no intention of surrendering the windfall; we learn that her background was `white-collar poor, middle-class poor,' and that she'd made a previous marriage solely for money.

Strange men start ringing her doorbell. First Dan Duryea shows up, a blackmailer for whom the payoff was intended. He slaps her around playfully (`What do they call you – besides stupid,' she taunts him. `Stupid will do – if you don't bruise easily,' he purrs back). Quickly Scott maneuvers Duryea into helping him murder Kennedy but still won't tell him where the money's stashed. Though wary, he falls for her, starts hitting the bottle, and grows careless. Meanwhile, Kennedy's sister (Kristine Miller) harbors suspicions about his mysterious disappearance. When the next caller (Don DeFore) shows up, claiming to be an old Air Corps buddy of Kennedy's, she makes an alliance with him to find out what's really going on. And the claim ticket for the money keeps changing hands....

The plot is none too simple, and in consequence director Byron Haskin spends a lot of time trying to keep it clear rather than addressing some questions about character and logic that inevitably arise. Why did the avaricious, manipulative Scott marry Kennedy in the first (or second) place? Why does the sister live so conveniently close? How did Duryea, and for that matter DeFore, find Scott so easily? But few thriller plots are so tightly constructed that they survive rigorous analysis. Too Late For Tears passes muster as hard-boiled, late-40s noir and as one of Scott's hardest, strongest performances, inappropriate smile and all.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

13 August 1949 (USA)

Also Known As:

Killer Bait

Filming Locations:

Republic Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Hunt Stromberg Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1