Rating: - Too Late For Tears
A splendid movie. Thrilling with a bottom lover story that still happens today.

Great Movie, Enjoy it for yourself too!

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Rating: - Greed Leads to Murder
Too Late for Tears, 1949 film

This was based on a `Saturday Evening Post' serial. It begins with a view from a hill overlooking a city in the dark (Los Angeles). A car drives along the highway, the couple in it argues. Another car tosses a satchel into their car. Then they are chased by another car. Is a bag of money good luck or a curse? Will they hide it or turn it in to the police? Will Jane spend some? Then a detective shows up to search their apartment. There is a surprise here! Does Jan have a character flaw? Can money buy "peace of mind"? Danny shows up again for his cash. Will Jane make a deal? Will she play fair? Was that a mistake? "You're quite a gal." Will their plot be successful? Jane takes Danny for a ride, but he jumps out and runs away.

Alan's sister checks their apartment and finds the claim ticket. An old war buddy of Alan's shows up. Katherine talks to him. What happened to Alan? Would he take his Army gun with him? Lt. Breech from Homicide shows up. Was there another woman? Alan's car was found near the Mexican border. Jane is curious about Don Blake. Is Katherine a threat to Jane? Danny doesn't like this, but he has no choice. Don and Katherine investigate Alan's disappearance. "That explains everything." Finally there is a meeting that causes a crisis for Don Blake. Jane goes to recover the satchel and keeps her bargain. "Its all ours." Danny tells how he got the money - blackmail!

Jane has one more trick up her sleeve. The police find Danny but he won't talk. We learn that dragging a lake has a lot of paperwork. Jane leaves California for Mexico. Don Blake shows up, we learn more about him. He is a killjoy. At the end we learn who Don Blake really is. Jane refuses to come quietly and so she is not taken back to America.

The unexpected plot twists will keep you surprised. This story reminds me of "Double Indemnity". "Jane Petrie" is the most vicious villainess since "Phyllis Nirdlinger". One flaw in this story is that Jane did not see a family resemblance in Don Blanchard. Jane's first husband was Bob Blanchard.

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Rating: - I Told You We Should Have Turned The Money Over To The Police
TOO LATE FOR TEARS(1949)---(Directed by Byron Haskin)---Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, Arthur Kennedy, Don DeFore, Kristine Miller, Barry Kelley.
IMO, a good little film noir, with Scott playing a "first-class" femme fatale. Scott and Kennedy play a married couple---Scott had been married once before but her husband had committed suicide. As they are driving to a party one evening, a valise containing a blackmail payoff is mistakenly thrown into their convertible. They stop and open the valise to discover that it contains about $60,000. Kennedy wants to take it to the police immediately; the avaricious Scott wants to keep the money for one week and watch the newspapers to see if anything about "missing money" is reported. Kennedy, a spineless milquetoast, acquiesces, with the condition that they don't touch the money until the week is up. Of course, this proves impossible for Scott to do and she starts buying furs, clothes, and other expensive items. When Kennedy discovers this, he checks the valise at the bus station and puts the claim check in his overcoat pocket, which happens to have a hole in it, which causes the claim check to fall into the lining of the overcoat. Scott is aware of this but can't get the coat away from Kennedy. At this juncture, Duryea shows up at Scott's apartment, pretending to be a cop on the trail of some "stolen money". Scott agrees to let him search the apartment and he finds the expensive merchandise she has purchased. At that point, he reveals that he is not a cop but the guy who was supposed to receive the payoff. He had observed Scott and Kennedy mistakenly get the bag and had copied their license number and tracked them down. Understandably, Duryea is a little upset and wants his money. She explains that the bag has been checked and that her husband has the claim check. She cuts a deal with Duryea to murder her husband and, with his assistance, get rid of the body and retrieve the claim check---they will then split the money between them. Everything goes as planned until Scott reaches into the lining of the overcoat and discovers that Kennedy has hidden the claim check and replaced it with a blank piece of paper. Kennedy has a sister(Miller) who happens to live across the hall and Scott tells her that Kennedy is missing and has apparently left her for another woman. The sister doesn't buy it and, while Scott is away, she enters the apartment, looks around, and finds the hidden claim check, which she keeps. About this time, DeFore shows up at the apartment and tells the sister that he is an old army buddy of Kennedy's and just wants to say hello. The sister confides in DeFore that her brother is missing and he agrees to help her sort it all out. In order to keep this synopsis reasonably brief, suffice it to say that the story takes several twists and turns, with Scott eventually getting her hands on the claim check and the money. She proceeds to poison Duryea and skip out to Mexico with the $$$. DeFore turns out not to be an army buddy of Kennedy's, but the brother of Scott's first husband whom she drove to suicide---he wants revenge. DeFore traces her to Mexico and, in collusion with the Mexican authorities, confronts Scott with the fact that he knows she murdered Kennedy and wants half the money to keep quiet about it. As soon as she produces the money, he calls the police, who are waiting in the lobby of Scott's hotel, and tells them to come up to Scott's room and arrest her. Without spoiling the ending, I'll just say that Scott has no intention of giving up without a fight and dies a death befitting a femme fatale. DeFore and Miller live happily ever after. As I said, I found this to be an entertaining film noir that draws you in and keeps things moving at a healthy pace. The plot is intricate but engrossing. I would certainly recommend this film to noir fans or fans of suspense dramas.

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Rating: - DeFore Saves This Story
This film noir was turning out to be a disappointment but picked up the pace nicely with some interesting twists when Don DeFore's character "Don Blake" entered the story

Meanwhile, Lizabeth Scott ("Jane Palmer") was convincing as the femme fatale and Dan Duryea ("Danny Fuller") was his normal entertaining character complete with some good, wisecracking lines. However, DeFore is the guy who rally snaps this film out of the doldrums.

This is a story of greed and what it can do to people, particularly if they aren't that moral to begin with!

It's nice to see this out on DVD, although, from what I have read everywhere, there hasn't been a decent print of this movie made available, at any price.....so beware.

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Rating: - CLASSIC MYSTERY!!!!!
Very good murder mystery, but Alpha's spliced-up print just won't do. This film deserves to be put back together.