Too Late for Tears (1949)

This blog post is my 100th, and early next month marks my three-year anniversary writing about noir. Here’s to 100 more posts and to three more years!

August 13, 1949, release date

Directed by Byron Haskin

Screenplay by Roy Huggins

Based on a serial for Saturday Evening Post by Roy Huggins

Music by R. Dale Butts

Edited by Harry Keller

Cinematography by William C. Mellor

Lizabeth Scott as Jane Palmer

Don DeFore as Don Blake

Dan Duryea as Danny Fuller

Arthur Kennedy as Alan Palmer

Kristine Miller as Kathy Palmer

Barry Kelley as Lt. Breach

Distributed by United Artists, Peter Rodgers Organization

Too Late for Tears is one of my favorite films noir, one of my favorite films. I am so, so sure that I watched this on television one afternoon after school, years ago, instead of doing my homework. This memory may be completely inaccurate, but it still holds a lot of nostalgic appeal for me. Watching Too Late for Tears today gives me that old familiar feeling. And this film noir, like so many others, explains pretty clearly what not to do to stay out of trouble!

Too Late for Tears is in the public domain, and you can watch it online at the Internet Archive by clicking here. You can even watch it with Portuguese subtitles at the same website by clicking here.

The opening music and credits over the nighttime scene, with the long shot of city lights in the distance, and the dark lonely road along the foreground, let viewers know immediately trouble is on its way. As soon as the credits are finished, car headlights appear on the road, at its farthest point. When the film cuts to Jane and Alan Palmer in the front seat of their car, Jane Palmer demonstrates what kind of woman she is by grabbing at the car keys while her husband Alan is driving. He says that he has never seen her this way before. Alan Palmer may not see the clues, but viewers know that changes are coming and, with the foreboding portrayed by the opening shots behind the credits, viewers also know that those changes won’t be good.

Alan and Jane Palmer are on their way to a party. Someone drives past them and throws a bag into the back of their car. Alan stops the car and opens the bag. When Jane see that it is full of money and that someone else is driving toward them, switching the headlights on and off as if in signal, she grabs the wheel of the car, orders her husband to get back in, and drives fast enough to elude what has now become the pursuer in the other car. Jane Palmer is a strong female lead: She takes control and never lets go, and she’s in it for herself. Danny Fuller, the driver of the other car, wants his money, however, and he gives Jane Palmer a chance to show how far she can go.

(This blog post about Too Late for Tears contains spoilers.)

Lizabeth Scott plays the strong female lead, and she is the quintessential femme fatale in this film, but Dan Duryea as Danny Fuller has all the best lines. Here are some examples:

• Danny Fuller [to Jane Palmer]: “If you get that dough and dust with it [the money]. . . .”

• Danny Fuller [to Jane Palmer]: “That’s better. Don’t ever change, Tiger. I don’t think I’d like you with a heart.”

• Danny Fuller: “Where’s my dough?”

• Jane Palmer: “Then, you’re not a policeman?”

• Danny Fuller: “Only on my mother’s side, honey.”

• Danny Fuller [to Jane Palmer after she shows up at his place with the money]: “Go away. Creep back out.”

Too Late for Tears has some twists and turns to keep viewers guessing. Who is Don Blake? Is he a blackmailer? Kathy Palmer, Alan’s sister, meets this self-identified friend of Alan about halfway through the movie, but nobody, including other characters in the film, is really sure of his identity. The claim check for the bag of money disappears and reappears, so does Alan’s gun, the only memento that he saved from his army days.

What an ending! Jane goes over a hotel railing in Mexico, holding on to some of the money that she ran away with. Too Late for Tears is noir from beginning to end, except for the fact that Don Blanchard and Kathy Palmer get together at the end. But that didn’t bother me because they had to wonder if they could trust one another from the start, and they took the whole film to figure it out. Seeing them get over that mistrust was satisfying, even if it wasn’t terribly noir.

Too Late for Tears was released just a little over sixty-nine years ago. It was also released with the title Killer Bait and, in France, it was released with the title La tigresse (The Tiger). I think the French got the title right: Not only is The Tiger a fitting name for this film (“Tiger” is the nickname Danny Fuller gives to Jane Palmer), it’s also a fitting description of Jane Palmer. She is a wild force to be reckoned with, and no one, not even Danny Fuller, can stop her. She proves to be too much for him to handle. And I think the French title La tigresse would have worked in the United States.

The film was restored, rescued from near-oblivion, by the Film Noir Foundation, and I am grateful to that foundation for the film’s availability. The print quality of the remaining copies of Too Late for Tears was deteriorating when the copies were restored, which explains why my borrowed DVD copy was “jumpy”: The sound and picture do not always match, the picture jumps as if some frames are missing, some of the shots are almost too dark to see, and small bits of dialogue are missing. The poor quality, especially at the beginning of the film, is disappointing because Too Late for Tears is a riveting story. But don’t let the quality of the recording stop you from seeing it. I have seen the film several times, and the story holds up after repeat viewings.

Although Too Late for Tears is in the public domain and you can watch it online, it’s worth obtaining a copy of the DVD with the following two features included: “Dan Duryea: Lady Killer” and “Lizabeth Scott: Femme Fatale.” Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation hosts both features, and he provides a lot of great background information about each star, both of whom were mainstays of the film noir genre. Here are a few tidbits:

Dan Duryea

◊ In contrast to his screen image (he almost always slapped his costar), Duryea married his high school sweetheart, Helen. She died in 1967, and he died a year later.

◊ Duryea was one of the biggest stars of the 1940s and 1950s. He rarely played a leading man, but he was still a fan favorite.

◊ Duryea never signed any long-term contracts with any major studios. He found he could make more money and take more control of his career as an independent.

Lizabeth Scott

◊ Lizabeth Scott’s real name was Emma Matzo.

◊ Scott was nicknamed “The Threat”: She looked a lot like Lauren Bacall and had a similar, smoky voice; thus, she was seen as Bacall’s competition.

◊ Scott is remembered as a femme fatale, but she often played vulnerable characters, which helped keep her audiences guessing.

I’m already thinking that I should write about this film again sometime. Too Late for Tears is one of those films I never tire of seeing again and again.