This tasty little noir creates a real identification in the viewer with the femme fatale - we want her to get away with the money!

It's always curious how coincidence presents noir characters with choices that sometimes have fatal consequences, and Too Late For Tears with its mistaken identity seems far-fetched, but is a perfect way to spin into action all the crazy things that lots of money can bring.

It's the little argument that Jane and Alan have in the opening scene about how their married friends look down on them that sets the tone of this film and establishes very well the attitude of our leading lady.

Jane believes that they don't have enough money to live anything but a middle class lifestyle. This character trait, combined with the do-or-die attitude of our leading lady is what drives the plot forward.

Lizabeth Scott is always interesting because of her flat delivery and her presence- even seemingly un-actorish; she attracts attention on screen because of her beauty, and that great voice.

The dialogue and plot points get a little clunky in places, but only to establish a base of ethics; there are some pretty good lines between the characters.

Tough-guy blackmailer played by Dan Dureya plays Danny Fuller, showing off Dureya's talent of playing tough guys who have large steaks of weakness, and this is perfectly matched against Liz Scott.

Lizabeth Scott uses all the attractiveness and charm of Jane to show how this character can twist men around her finger to get what she wants.

A Dan Duryea showcase, featuring the persona that burned a place for him in film history, and the slurred smoky-voiced Lizabeth Scott as a great femme fatale.

The film puts us in the position of asking what we would do if a bag of money fell in our laps, and this is the plot point that hooks us and keeps us involved until the end of the story.

The money does hook us because each of us has a little greed devil that whispers into our ear and reasons that if we could get away with it $60,000 dollars could make things easier.

Arthur Kennedy's Alan presents a fine characterization of the man whose heart wants more than the stuff money can buy. It's the character of Jane that conflicts with Alan, and later the detective Danny Fuller that burns the image of her as real femme fatale in our minds.

It begins when Jane complains to Alan that she doesn't like one of their married friends because she is 'patronized' by her as she is ... "looking down her nose at me like a big ugly house up there looks down on Hollywood."

There's also the great line from Fuller to Jane: "Ya know honey you've got quite a flare- I like ya. Too bad you're a chiseler. At the risk of seeming tedious, just where did you stash my cash?"

The story is well-written pulp and has some fine little turns that keep us involved. Roy Huggins, who later produced such TV detective series as The Rockford Files adapted the story from his novel that was published as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post.

This United Artists 98-minute film released in 1949, also known by the title "Killer Bait", has a great noir set-up and director Byron Haskin makes good use of the studio sets and rear projection.

When a particular claim ticket for a bag of money gets lost through a hole in a coat pocket, our hearts skip a little thinking about all that cash and what we might do with it, and we understand what Jane is feeling.

There's also the way we get emotionally involved when Alan's sister Kathy snoops around the apartment and takes the claim ticket. We wonder if Kathy will go after the money.

Later when 'friend' Don gets his hands on the ticket we wonder if the bag of cash is lost to Jane for good.

More than anything the film involves us viscerally because we want the bag of illicit cash for ourselves, and the film keeps us identifying with Jane until the end, following the money.

The great cliched element of the by-the-book cop with Barry Kelley as Lt. Breach blowing off Don's admonition to drag the lake for Alan also feeds our secret sense of guilt by association with Jane's greed, involving us more fully- we hope the cop will ignore Don's suggestion, and he does.

It is this depth of complication that allows this movie to shine. As a low-budget studio noir much else is standard but we still stay with the characters as we follow the money.

So much of the back-story on Jane and why she is the way she is comes out a little expositional at time. This slows the movement of the film and the sense of fatalism that starts with Jane's complaining about her and Alan's middle-class angst.

So much of the great perf of Scott comes from her ability to play any subtext with a variety of standard expressions. The acting ability of Scott serves well to project the sense of a woman who will pretend to anything to get what she wants.

Dan Duryea at first seems to be a tough guy but next to Scott he appears to be conscience-stricken when he has to get drunk before he can buy the poison she wants to use on Kathy.

When the real identity of Don comes out it seems as if the filmmakers could have used another script revision, only because this character and his connection with Kathy is a new spin in the story.

One dark night Jane Parker (Lizabeth Scott) and her husband Alan Parker (Arthur Kennedy) are driving down a road in Hollywood when from a passing car a mysterious bag is tossed into their car. When they realize that the bag is filled with cash Alan wants to turn it over to the Police but Jane wants to keep it. Agreeing to tuck the cash away and let time pass, they put the bag of money in a claim check baggage facility. When Danny fuller (Dan Duryea) comes to visit Jane he claims that the money belongs to him, but Jane negotiates a finder's fee and Fuller agrees to a split of the cash. Jane however knows that her husband is too honest to go along with the deal so with Fuller's help, she kills him and reports him missing to the police. When Alan's sister Kathy (Kristine Miller) suspects that something is amiss she sneaks into the couple's apartment to investigate and finds the baggage claim ticket prompting her to think something bad may have happened to her brother. When Don Blake (Don DeFore) accidentally meets Kathy while looking for Jane, Kathy tells him of her concerns. Don claims that he was an old friend of Alan's but Jane soon suspects that he is not being truthful and calls on an old Army buddy of Alan's to help. When Jane discovers that Kathy may know something incriminating, she gets Fuller to get some poison that she intends to kill Kathy with. Jane knocks out Don, retrieves the baggage claim ticket and gets the bag of illicit cash. She goes to see Danny Fuller poisons him and flees to Mexico, to be tracked down by Don, and faced with another difficult decision.

Any fan of such low-budget studio noir films will find some fine fun in Too Late For Tears. I got my DVD from oldies.com for $5.95, and the best thing to enjoy it with is Breyers Rocky Road Ice Cream.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older