Shed No Tears

Plot synopsis:
At the instigation of his wife Edna, used car salesman Sam Grover devises a scheme to collect on his $50,000 life insurance policy. After hurling a flaming unidentifiable corpse from the window of a burning hotel room registered in his name, Sam disguises himself and hides out in Washington, D.C. to await Edna. Edna is to identify the corpse, which was wearing Sam's ring and wristwatch, and collect the insurance money. However, Tom, Sam's son by a prior marriage, hires a private detective, Huntington Stewart, to find out if his father's death was really an accident or if his stepmother murdered him. Stewart tricks Edna into disclosing that Sam is alive and blackmails her while stalling Tom. Edna, who had never intended to share the money with Sam, is in love with a young wastrel, Ray Belden, with whom she plans to leave the country. Sam returns and overhears Edna's plans, follows Belden and kills him. Tom, who has been following his father without recognizing him, hears the shots and reports to Stewart, who realizes that Sam has returned but does not tell Tom. Instead, he traces Sam and blackmails him too. When Belden's body is discovered, police detective Hutton arrests Edna on suspicion of murder. She is released on bail and follows Stewart to Sam's hideout. Meanwhile, Tom, still unaware that his father is alive, receives $5,000 that Sam has sent him, Tom assumes that the money is a bribe from the real killer and goes to the police. The police follow Edna to Sam and when she learns that he killed Belden, she shoots him but falls to her death from the hotel window while struggling with Stewart. The police arrest Stewart and although Tom is remorseful at having enabled them to discover his father's crime, Sam tells him that he would rather pay the law's penalty than continue being blackmailed by Stewart.

Tags: murder

Review:
No tears, just applause.
Wallace Ford fakes his death in a hotel room fire.
He hooks up with his much younger wife, June Vincent, and together they plan on bilking the insurance company for the payoff of 50 grand which will reunite them once she collects.
She watches as he gets on the bus, then meets her boyfriend in the parking lot and they talk of how they're going to spend the money.All this happens in the first ten minutes or so - there's no fat on this baby.But meanwhile, Ford's son thinks that something is amiss, he thinks that Vincent killed Ford herself and he hires an investigator to prove it.
This is where things really start perking as the Clifton Webb-like sleuth, played wonderfully by Johnstone White, soon figures out what's going on and he starts playing the supposed widow and the son against each other as well as Ford himself who comes back to town and discovers his wife in a clinch with her boyfriend.But wait - there's still more but you're going to have to find out for yourself.
Jean Yarbrough, veteran of just about every kind of movie and TV genre, manages to keep one's interest despite a lack of noirish touches.
It's likely that he had to get this done in a week or so, so there wasn't any time for complicated camera set-ups.
The story here is the main thing, you likely will not be disappointed..
Single Indemnity.
Directed by Jean Yarbrough and starring Wallace Ford and June Vincent, Shed No Tears was once one of those lost film noirs that noiristas craved to see.
Now widely available to view, it proves to be a decent journey into noirville, even if it becomes a touch shaky come the final third.
Plot has Vincent as a devious femme fatale wife who convinces her husband (Ford) to fake his own death.
The plan is to get rich on the insurance claim, but soon it becomes apparent that hubby is caught in a web of murder, blackmail and treachery.
The plot dynamics are laid out for us very early in the peace, leaving the rest of the narrative to tease us with the shifty shenanigans of the protagonists.
Classic noir staples are adhered to with the characterisations, viper woman, dupes, dopes, crooks and cronies.
Yarbrough moves it along at a good old "B noir" clip, while the screenplay has enough twists and surprises in it to keep the noir faithful pleased.
About as rotten a dame as you'll ever find in a film noir movie...and a bunch of rotten guys to boot!.
I love film noir movies.
And, although "Shed No Tears" is from a tiny production company (Equity Pictures) and has mostly small-time or over the hill actors, it's a top film--gritty, intelligently written and cold-hearted...the way you WANT noir to be!When the film begins, a husband and wife have just set up the fake death of the husband.
Using a corpse they bought, they then started a fire in a motel room and made it appear as if the husband was the victim.
The plan is to then use the husband's insurance policy to get rich and they'll take off and start a new life.
However, what the man (Wallace Ford) doesn't know is that his wife is scum....a true femme fatale.
You see, his beloved young wife (June Vincent) already has another lover and is planning on keeping all the money!Into this twisted tale of domestic bliss comes an unknown quantity-- the husband's adult son from a previous marriage.
No one anticipated that he'd not believe the way his father supposedly died--and he hires a skunk of a private detective to investigate.
I say the dick is a skunk because he soon figures out what's happening and he plans on bleeding the 'grieving widow' of at least some of her insurance money.If it sounds like most of the people in this film are scum, you have it right.
Rarely have I seen a film with so many wonderful twists-- all because most everyone (aside from the son) are just dirt!
Additionally, great dialog, lots of smart writing, acting and direction make this a surprisingly strong and entertaining film..
Efficient And Dull Handling of A Great Script.
Wallace Ford fakes his own death and heads off to Washington until his wife, June Vincent, can can collect his insurance.
Then they'll be off to Mexico to enjoy the money.
Ford doesn't know that Vincent has a chiseling boyfriend.
While the police agree it looks like an accident, the insurance company wants to investigate.
Ford's son, Dick Hogan, thinks it looks suspicious and hires P.I. Johnstone White.
White proceeds to play every side for profit.Director Jean Yarborough has gotten his hands on a nice script by Brown Holmes, Virginia M.
Cooke and Don Martin, Unfortunately, what could have been a noir with a mordant comedy turn in the Johnstone role (think of Laughton in THE BRIBE) turns out to be a competent turn by some decent performers; it demonstrates why none of them got out of the B movies.
The question is never a matter of what the player will do next, nor how skilled cameraman Frank Redman will shoot this particular shot.
Instead, it becomes a matter of wondering where this fascinating script will lead these characters,.
When things go wrong.
Shed No Tears was a product of short lived Eagle-Lion Pictures.
was not done by even a studio like RKO.
The thing looks like it was shot with my
father's old Bell&Howell movie camera, the sets are threadbare.
But it's a fascinating story about how things can go wrong when you hook up in a confidence game.Wallace Ford fakes his own death in a fire and wife June Vincent and his
insurance policy names her the beneficiary.
So he hides, she collects the money and they run off to live large anonymously.
Only Ford really has
picked a winner in two timing June Vincent.
She's been two timing Ford with
Mark Roberts and she plans to have him bumped off and the two of them go
to Rio by the sea-o.All this doesn't sit well with Ford's son by his first marriage Dick Hogan.
hires a private detective, a Nero Wolfe like character in Johnston White.
White's also a two timer.
In fact he steals the film whenever he's on screen.Quite a lot of plot is packed into this short B picture.
It's a shame it had such
an amateurish production..
"I'll Eat Popcorn at the Funeral"!!!.
...so says sexy Edna (June Vincent with her distinctive blonde hair streaks), the much younger wife of businessman Sam Grover (Wallace Ford) when he tells her she must shed no tears!!
At her urging he has faked his own death to defraud the insurance company out of a fortune - the only problem is that while he is desperately waiting, holed up in a distant town, she is definitely shedding no tears in the arms of her lover Ray.There are more twists and turns than a mountain road - enter Sam's son, Tom, who has been estranged from his father since his marriage to Edna.
He has doubts that his father is dead and Edna's icy demeanour doesn't exactly quell his suspicions.
His eager fiancé puts him in touch with debonair private eye Huntington Stewart (just imagine Clifton Webb from "Laura") who seems to have a finger in everyone's pie.
His first port of call is the "grieving widow" where a phone call indicates that she is not grieving nor a widow.
He tries to shake her down for $5,000 - to give Tom a start in life but Tom wants to handle things in his own "rough house" way!!Then Sam returns, he has only had one letter from Edna and he is now completely suspicious - but don't feel sorry for poor cuckolded Sam. He is not above bilking his landlady by selling off all her furniture when she is away for the day!!
Once back he seems to know exactly what is going on - staking Ray out and then leaving Edna with a finger-printed gun and looking at a stretch in the big house whichever way she turns!!
You have seen it all before but at just over an hour there is no wasted space.
There couldn't have been any other actor in mind than Wallace Ford as the befuddled Sam who re-enters with a steely purpose but it is June Vincent's movie all the way, from crying crocodile tears when she is told of her husband's death to her only sincere bit of emotion when she realises something nasty has happened to Ray. It is also to Frank Albertson's credit that he makes his role as the standard detective stand out what with all the slippery characters abounding..
Insurance fraud with a twist of irony..
You'd think after watching "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice", people desiring to defraud insurance agencies would have learned a lesson, but not these film noir characters, which includes the typical older man/younger woman, and the younger woman intends to use the money to run away with her lover.
But the older husband is a bit wiser than his wife thinks he is, and just as she thinks she's getting away with everything, he's back to get his cut, with or without her remaining at his side.Slightly clever repeat of an old theme, this offers some suspense and a femme fatal (June Vincent) worthy of inclusion in the hall of fame for film noir vixens.
Wallace Ford gives an excellent performance of the seemingly cuckolded husband with Mark Roberts the unfortunate lover who is too consumed with Vincent to realize he's involved in a loosing game.
There's also the family angle of Ford's first wife's son, especially in a scene with Vincent that may or may not be attempted seduction simply to keep his mouth shut.
But there's too many scenes of nothing but talk to take away from the intrigue that unfortunately leads to a predictable conclusion..
Say, ain't you supposed to be dead?.
There is a sleazy private detective (Johnstone White) in a prominent role as blackmailer and conniver.
I swear his character is lifted directly from Clifton Webb's in "Laura," which appeared a few years earlier to bouquets of praise.
White is a flit, like Waldo Lydekker.
He looks a little like Clifton Webb.
He uses the same elegant phrases: "You may abandon that ree-DICK-ulous position." He pays great attention to his wardrobe and grooming, and he's the most interesting character in this twisted hour-long B story of theft, fraud, intrigue, adultery, and murder.Wallace Ford fakes his own death to gain insurance money for him and his wife, Jean Parker.
Unknown to Ford, Parker has a boy friend on the side.
Tom, Ford's virtuous son by a previous marriage enters the picture, convinced there was some skullduggery involved.
He hires White, the private eye, to dig into the matter and White finds out everything and tries to blackmail everyone and then it gets anfractuous and somebody gets shot and somebody falls out the window -- not the same person who got shot -- and it's all a little confusing, but not as confusing as, say, "War and Peace." Not in my estimation anyway.It's an interesting and uninspired move.
It exemplifies the Peter Principle.
All of the actors, bit parts included, seem to have worked their way up the ladder until they have reached their level of incompetence.
Their careers will go nowhere.
The performers walk from place to place, as directed, and recite their lines with the same credibility that you and I might show if we'd had a few acting lessons.
On those rare occasions when Jean Parker, than whom no femme was ever more fatale, smiles, the smile carries all the significance of that of a synchronized swimmer.
There isn't a moment when you believe anything other than that you're watching a movie in which nobody is bringing much to the party.As a performer, Wallace Ford is made of wood here.
Too bad.
Too bad.
He was capable of better things in better movies.
(He was Frankie McPhillip in "The Informer".) He was reliable as a supporting player, usually some Irishman, in other works, but was always hampered by a voice that sounds as if his false teeth were loose or he had half a load on.Overall it's pretty dull except for Johnstone White as the recherché shamus.