Too Late for Tears (1949)

Too Late for Tears is a 1949 American murder crime film noir directed by Byron Haskin and starring Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea and Arthur Kennedy. It tells a story about a woman who steals a suitcase of $60,000 and goes on a killing crime spree. The screenplay was written by Roy Huggins, developed from a serial he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post.

The film was reissued as Killer Bait in 1955. Too Late for Tears has been in the public domain for many years; there are several different edits of the film with different running times. On January 25, 2014, a restored 35mm print was premiered by the Film Noir Foundation at Noir City 12 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. The film was restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Film Noir Foundation, with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association providing some of the necessary funding. The restoration combined 35mm dupe negative elements from France with some material from surviving prints. No Blu-ray release has been announced.

Synopsis

Jane and Alan Palmer (Scott and Kennedy) are driving to a party in the Hollywood Hills one evening when someone in another car throws a suitcase into the back seat of their convertible. They open it and discover packs of cash. They are chased by yet another car for a short time but get away. Back at their upper-middle-class Hollywood apartment, they examine the cash. Jane wants to keep the money, but Alan wants to take it to the police. Alan places the suitcase and cash in a locker at Union Station, hoping he can sway Jane into surrendering it to the police.

Actors