Homme fatal

Too Late for Tears 1949 U.S. Republic Pictures (99 minutes) Directed by Byron Haskin; screenplay by Roy Huggins (from his Saturday Evening Post serial); cinematography by William C. Mellor; editing by Harry Keller.

Too Late for Tears is a World War II-era crime picture featuring two film noir stand-bys, but it two-times the typical film noir trope. 

Alan and Jane Palmer (Arthur Kennedy and Lizabeth Scott) are a couple that has had their marital ups and downs since they met and married after Alan got home from the war. Alan is an upwardly mobile ex-serviceman; Jane, a housewife, would like to accelerate that upward mobility. Alan and Jane both had modest beginnings, although Jane was married briefly during the war to a wealthy man who reportedly killed himself.

Alan and Jane Palmer (Arthur Kennedy and Lizabeth Scott) in Too Late for Tears (1949)

The couple quarrel one evening driving to soirée with Alan’s boss Ralph that Jane does not want to attend. Jane complains that she does not want Ralph’s ‘diamond-studded wife looking down her nose at me like a big ugly house up there looking down on Hollywood.’

Alan stops their convertible on the shoulder. While he tries to reassure Jane, someone in a passing sedan tosses a Gladstone bag in their back seat. When they see the money in the bag, they realize they have been mistaken for a blackmail drop. Another sedan slips by. Thinking quickly, Jane takes the wheel. She gives Alan a white-knuckle ride, coolly shaking their pursuer as though she taught CIA’s evasive driving course.

Now what to do with the $60,000? Alan’s conscience tells him there is no way they can continue together if they keep it; Jane’s money-hunger argues there is no way she can give it up. In the end, each is proven right. But for the moment they compromise: they will check the bag for a week in the Parcel Check at Union Station and see how they feel at the end of the week. 

The chance of a lifetime: Lizabeth Scott and Arthur Kennedy in Too Late for Tears (1949)

Jane argues that she has dreamed of a chance like this all her life. Far worse than being poor, ‘We were white-collar poor, middle-class poor. The kind of people who can’t quite keep up with the Joneses and die a little every day because they can’t.’

Alan replies: ‘The money won’t help. There will always be Joneses with a little more. The only thing worth having is peace of mind and money can’t buy that.’

The very next day Jane unsurprisingly spends nearly $800 on luxuries, using their savings against their windfall. And, as Alan anticipated, their pursuer saw their automobile license plate. Right after she gets back from her shopping splurge, Jane entertains a ‘detective’ who appears at their apartment.

Dan Duryea the sleazy Romeo in Too Late for Tears (1949)

Danny Fuller (Dan Duryea) claims to be investigating missing money. ‘You haven't anything to hide, have you?’ he asks. Jane sits down and crosses her legs. ‘No, I can see you haven't.’ Fuller, a bigger talker than a heavy, thinks he has the little woman in the palm of his hand; Jane, who hasn’t far to travel from greed to sociopathy, begins only to sense distress on the edge of her web.

Then things begin to happen quickly for Alan’s sister, Kathy Palmer (Kristine Miller), who lives in the apartment across the hall from Alan and Jane. First, her brother disappears and Jane quickly agrees with a homicide investigator­­—Police Lt. Breach (Barry Kelley)—that ‘another woman’ was involved. Kathy does not buy that. And then the bluff, pleasant Don Blake (Don DeFore), one of Alan’s squadron mates from the war, turns up looking for Alan.

Homme fatal?: Don Blake (Don DeFore with Kathy Palmer (Kristine Miller) in Too Late for Tears (1949)

Jane’s hunger for the money makes her wise to that old stunt, and then Blake plays her flirting like a proposition but without the least interest in her. Jane invites to her apartment a local man with whom she knew Alan flew in England during the war. The man confronts Blake. Kathy is puzzled because Blake seems so concerned about Alan but evidently never knew him. Jane is puzzled because Blake keeps buzzing around her web with no apparent interest in money or sex. Jane is not the kind of woman who likes being puzzled, particularly anything that finds its way between her and her money.

In any case, neither Blake nor Kathy know about the money at outset. They become allies in their suspicion of Jane and in trying to find out what really happened to Alan. And then Kathy turns up the Union Station parcel claim check in Alan's things.

The ‘reveal’ occurs in a glamourous resort in Mexico where Jane goes 'por un momento de sonho pra fazer a fantasia', pursued by the homme fatal and the Furies.