Product: Too Late for Tears (1949)
Rating: 4.0
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.