Too Late for Tears **** (1949, Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea, Arthur Kennedy) – Classic Movie Review 2159

‘She Got What She Wanted… With Lies… With Kisses… With Murder!’

Lizabeth Scott triumphs in her best movie role as Jane Palmer, a ruthless femme fatale who stumbles across a case filled with $60,000 worth of stolen loot and determines to hang onto it at any cost. Director Byron Haskin’s 1949 black and white crime thriller Too Late for Tears is a stylish and involving, satisfyingly complex film noir that delves below the surface of an ordinary relationship to reveal a morass of desires and regrets.

Jane and her husband Alan (Arthur Kennedy) are tootling along a lonely highway by night when a speeding vehicle tosses a satchel of money, obviously intended for somebody else, into the back seat of their car. This unleashes the real nature of the predatory wife and leads her down into a shady world of crime. Jane talks Alan into not handing it in to the police just yet, but soon sleazy Danny Fuller (Dan Duryea) turns up and claims the money is his.

Byron Haskin makes a grand job of directing this tense classic film noir, independently produced by poverty row Hunt Stromberg Productions, and released by United Artists. Roy Huggins writes the gripping screenplay based on his April 1947 Saturday Evening Post serial, which he turned into a novel in July 1947.

The sterling work from Scott, Duryea, who turns out to be a private eye, and Don DeFore as a seedy and greedy lowlife called Don Blake, plus the wild noir story, easily compensate for the low budget production. Cleverly photographed in black and white on well-chosen LA exteriors by double Oscar-winning cameraman William C Mellor, the film also gets a lift from the charismatic support from Kristine Miller as Kathy Palmer and Barry Kelley as Police Lieutenant Breach.

[Spoiler alert] Miller plays the sister-in-law of Jane Palmer, whom she suspects has murdered her brother. Kathy is romanced by Don Blake, and they set out together to investigate the shady lady.

Don DeFore and Lizabeth Scott.

Also in the cast are Jimmy Ames as Fat Man, Richard Irving as First Car Thief, Jimmie Dodd as Second Car Thief, Charles Flynn, Georgia Backus, Robert Bice (as Policeman), David Clarke (as Jack Sharber), Perry Ivins, John Mansfield (as Carlos), Alex Montoya (as Mexican Officer), Forbes Murray (as Dr Adams), Garry Owen, Jim Nolan [James Nolan] (as Detective Parker), Jack Shea, Carl Thompson, William Wayne, Billy Halop (as boat attendant), Renee Donat, Denver Pyle (Youth at Union Station), June Storey (as Fuller’s girl) and Smoki Whitfield (as Pete).

Too Late for Tears runs 100 minutes. It was re-released as Killer Bait in 1955. It is long in the public domain, after the original copyright holder failed to renew the film’s copyright, with several edits with different running times. A restored 35mm print was premiered on 25 January 2014 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco and TCM premiered it on 17 July 2015.

It was restored by UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Film Noir Foundation, with some funding from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The restoration took five years and combines 35mm dupe negative elements from France with material from surviving 35mm and 16mm prints.

Too Late For Tears [Killer Bait] is directed by Byron Haskin, runs 100 minutes, is made by Hunt Stromberg Productions, is released by United Artists, is written by Roy Huggins, is shot in black and white by William C Mellor, is produced by Hunt Stromberg, is scored by R Dale Butts and is designed by James W Sullivan.

Stromberg borrowed Scott, Miller, DeFore, and director Haskin from producer Hal B. Wallis.

Lizabeth Scott was born Emma Matzo in 1922. Her most recent film is Pulp in 1972. From then she has been engaged in real estate development and volunteer work for various charities, such as Project HOPE and the Ancient Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Scott suffered heart failure at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and died on January 31 2015, aged 92.

Kristine Miller, born Jacqueline Olivia Eskesen, also died in 2015, aged 89.

© Derek Winnert 2015 – Classic Movie Review 2159

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