Too Late for Tears

and Lizabeth Scott Los Angeles couple Jane and Alan Palmer are returning from a party when the driver in an oncoming car tosses a bag of cash into their car. The Palmers elude another car that pursues them, and in a compromise between Jane wanting to keep the money and Alan wanting to contact police, they agree to check the bag at Union Station. When Alan is at work, a man named Danny Fuller comes to the Palmer apartment and tells Jane the money was intended for him. Jane says the money is not there and proposes to split it. Alan decides to turn the bag over to authorities, and Jane devises a plan to kill him. Jane suggests she and Alan take a pedal boat ride at MacArthur Park and tells Fuller to meet her there. After killing Alan, she and Fuller sink the body. Jane next attempts to kill Fuller, but he escapes. Jane devises a scheme to appear that Alan ran off to Mexico with the money by reporting him missing. Alan’s sister, Kathy, lives in the apartment next to the Palmers, becomes suspicious and finds the bag’s claim ticket. Don Blake, claiming to be Alan’s war buddy, arrives to help find him. Don and Kathy are attracted to each other. Jane discovers Kathy has the claim ticket and pressures Fuller to buy poison to kill her. Jane unmasks Don as an impostor, knocks him out and retrieves the claim ticket. Jane retrieves the bag and Fuller tells her the money is his payment to remain silent over an insurance scam. Jane tricks him into fatally drinking the poison intended for Kathy. Jane escapes with the money to Mexico. Don tracks Jane to her hotel room and blackmails her into confessing she killed Alan. Don reveals he is really the brother of Jane’s first husband, whom he suspects she murdered, too. Mexican police breach the room and, cornered, Jane accidentally falls to her death from the balcony. Don returns to the hotel lobby where he and Kathy, now married, decide to end their honeymoon early and return to the United States. ==Cast==

Development The film was adapted for the screen by Roy Huggins, based on his own serialized novel of the same name, which had been published by The Saturday Evening Post. Casting Stromberg initially sought Joan Crawford for the lead role of Jane Palmer, Kirk Douglas as Danny Fuller, and Wendell Corey as Don Blake. Instead, Hal B. Wallis, with whom Lizabeth Scott was under contract, loaned out her for the project Don DeFore and Dan Duryea were ultimately cast as Don and Danny, respectively. ==Release==

'', 1949 Too Late for Tears was distributed by United Artists, opening regionally in Arkansas and Kentucky on July 3, 1949. The film opened in Los Angeles on July 13, 1949. It was re-released in August 1955 under the alternate title Killer Bait by Astor Pictures, a distributor that specialized in theatrical reissuing of films. Astor Pictures often paired the film as a double feature with Johnny Holiday (1948), which they reissued under the alternative title ''Boy's Prison''. Box office Too Late for Tears was a box-office bomb at the time of its release, sending its producer into bankruptcy. Critical response Upon its original release, Too Late for Tears received mixed reviews from critics. A review published by the Spokane Chronicle described the film as "dramatic and tragic" and "an action-packed film which has its good moments." Alternately, a reviewer for the Detroit Free Press was unimpressed by Scott's performance, writing: "She produces a characterization which is without explanation or belief... Miss Scott appears terribly tired in the film. Her acting has the same quality. All of which leaves what should have been an exciting movie in a somewhat rundown condition." Film critic Dennis Schwartz in 2005 wrote a favorable review: , the film holds a 100% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on five critical reviews. Restoration Too Late for Tears fell in the public domain in the decades after its release, owing to the dissolution of its corporate holders who failed to renew its copyright. The Film Noir Foundation, dedicated to preserving film noirs, had sought to restore the film since its inception in 2006, but were unable to locate quality prints. The restoration entailed the use of both the French 35 mm print (bearing the French language title, Le Tigresse), as well as an American 35 mm print from 1955, when the film was re-released bearing the alternate title Killer Bait. The film's closing titles also had to be reconstructed using the same method. The following month, British distributor Arrow Films released the restored print in a DVD and Blu-ray set through their Arrow Academy label. ==Legacy==

Scott's performance in the film is regarded by several critics as among her best work. Her femme fatale character in the film has been noted as one of the most merciless and avaricious in film noir, and marked a departure from her previous performances in Pitfall (1948), which featured elements of character vulnerability. Film scholar Fabio Vighi notes in Critical Theory and Film: Rethinking Ideology Through Film Noir that, "Like few other femmes, she appears unstoppable, ready to do anything to achieve her object." Interviewed in 2001, Scott commented on the role: "Obviously, there was a softness and an inordinate amount of feminine qualities in [the character]...  When a woman like this is corrupted, she would surrender to that corruption. Money would become her delight and her total obsession, and she would then kill for it." Too Late for Tears has developed a cult following in the decades since its original release. Todd Weiner of the UCLA Film & Television Archive wrote upon the film's 2016 Blu-ray release: "Modern audiences now recognize it as a darkly satisfying and atmospheric meditation on the covetous societal and materialistic ambitions of postwar middle-class America." Film critic and writer Eddie Muller cites the film as "The best un-known American film noir of the classic era." ==See also==