Product: Too Late for Tears (1949)
Rating: 3.0
So-so noir, a treat for Liz Scott/Dan Duryea fans
The "fatal woman" was an essential -- if misogynistic -- underpinning of film noir, and Lizabeth Scott here plays one of its most irredeemable examples. During a wild night chase, a bagful of stolen money appears -- presto -- in the car she and her husband are driving. Her greed so overwhelms her that she turns into a scheming, ruthless vixen. Dan Duryea is on hand to slap her around a bit (his specialty), and Dan DeFore -- an avuncular figure from 50s television -- pops up as an ambiguous figure from her past. The plot is implausible fun, but Scott looks far more drawn and haggard than she did just a couple years earlier in Dead Reckoning (the fault of cinematography or dissipation?). Beware: this print is taped at EP speed, with sudden jumps and other blemishes, as though it was taken from a very bad print; the night scenes are close to unviewable. But then Too Late for Tears is is no masterpiece of light and shadow; at the price, however, it's a servicable thriller you probably won't go back to very often.