Film noir fans know that Lizabeth Scott was one of the most fatale of femmes fatales in a genre that more or less required one or more. Scott's character, Jane Palmer, in "Too Late for Tears" (1949) is contrasted to a bigger heroine, Kristine Miller playing Jane's unmarried sister-in-law, Kathy Palmer, who lives across the hall and whom I find relatively scary. But Jane Palmer is probably the baddest of the bad girls Scott played (in the first and most famous of the noirs she was in, "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" she was not very bad, but check out "Two of a Kind"). Her first fatality in "Too Late For Tears "might legally be manslaughter, but to hold onto illicit money she premeditates two additional murders. Although less seductive than Barbara Stanwyck was in "Double Indemnity," Scott's Jane is more cold-blooded, rivaling Shirley Stoler in "The Honeymoon Killers."

Someone who does not enjoy watching bass-voiced bad girls pretending to be conventional housewives is unlikely to enjoy "Too Late for Tears"—or to be a noir fan. The movie also showcases another recurrent noir figure Dan Duryea. It his blackmail payment that Scott is holding on to. He comes to threaten her, but she turns out to be much tougher than he is. (Whether she drives him to drink could be argued, but he definitely hits the bottle as she involves him in deeper and deeper crimes.) She's also much tougher than her husband, Alan, the most honest character in the movie, but one whose judgment is very bad (not least in having married a conniving hellcat. In this role, Arthur Kennedy lacked the cynical savoir-faire his characters often had (Rancho Notorious, The Man from Laramie, Elmer Gantry, Lawrence of Arabia).

The Story

It is best for enjoying the movie not to know anything about the plot. Even the vague allusions above threaten to be plot-spoilers. But for those whose interest is only in the stories, I'll outline the start of the proceedings.

At the outset, Alan Palmer is driving a convertible on a deserted highway, as his wife Jane is kvetching about the condescension she receives from the hostess of a dinner party they are driving to (Alan's boss' wife). She pulls the keys out of the ignition of the moving vehicle. This causes the headlights to blink off and on. After Alan turns the car around, another car goes by and throws a leather bag into the car.

Jane opens it and sees that it is full of money. Alan wants to take it to the police, but Jane's greed is in over-drive. She takes the wheel and the car is also soon in overdrive. Ironically, it is after losing the car that was pursuing them and switching drivers, that a policeman stops and tickets them (for making a turn without signaling). Jane persuades Alan to wait a week to think about what to do with the money, and he takes it to the LA train station and checks it. The claim check slips through a hole in his coat pocket into the lining and becomes the center-piece of the plot.

The intended recipient of the payoff (blackmail), Danny Fuller (Dan Duryea) traced the license number and Jane faces him down when he comes a'callin' a few days later. He is impressed by her chutzpah and playing men as suckers is something Jane does well. Her sister-in-law is more suspicious, and eventually has an ally whose identity and motivation I guessed long before he reveals it to any of the characters.

On a boat in some park lake, Jane again insists that Alan turn back. There is another drive on a deserted highway, and a highway patrolman stopping Jane, and the Production Code decreed that crime cannot pay and noirs often included past transgressions catching up with doomed characters, but I will not reveal how cinematic justice occurs in this outing.

The DVD
says it used the best available material. I'm willing to believe that, but the best is none too good. There are a few small bits missing in the print transferred to DVD and many vertical scratches. There is nothing special (none of the odd angles or menacing shadows of the artier noirs) in "Too Late for Tears" as shot by William Mellor (whose best-known work was 1950s movies directed by George Stevens: A Place in the Sun, Giant, The Diary of Anne Frank); he won Oscars for the first and third of these and was also nominated for Stevens's (I1965) "The Greatest Story Ever Told").

It seems that as much as half of the movie is daytime, but with none of the characters who survive the first third of the movie having clean hands, the moral universe of greed and revenge is indisputably the noir world.

"Too Late for Tears" is not a great movie nor is it a particularly impressive noir visually, but it contains prototypical peformances by the diamond-hard Scott and the squishy-centered (under the swagger) Duryea and a very hard-boiled noir plot (supplied by Roy Huggins). The movie was directed by Byron Haskins, who had also directed Scott in "I Walk Alone" the year before (with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas and more stylish noir cinematography).

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age