Customer Reviews

Too Late for Tears

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This film noir classic from 1949 has a very well-crafted plot. Lizabeth Scott & Arthur Kennedy play a married couple who have a bag filled with $60,000 thrown into their car by mistake! Lizabeth Scott wants to keep the money, but her husband wants to do the right thing & turn the money over to the cops. When the owner of the money (Dan Duryea) comes to collect she decides to get rid of her self-righteous hubby & split the money with Duryea! From then on, the tension builds as people become suspicious of Lizabeth Scott, who turns out to be much deadlier than Duryea figured. This little-known gem is highly recommended for film noir buffs. However, I want to warn you that although the movie is great, the transfer is not. There's some "jumpy" scenes, plenty of scratches visible, & the image quality is never totally clear. The sound quality isn't so hot either, & at times you can't even hear all they're saying! Considering the low cost of the dvd, these flaws are forgivable, but I'd love to see this great classic restored to its original glory.

I am not going to write about the movie itself. It's a film noir classic. What I would like to comment on is this absolutely shameful DVD release by Image. They have used one of the worst public domain copies, without a hint of restoration and charge over $20 for this. It's a robbery! The only redeaming quality of this release are great but short documentaries by Eddie Muleer. The best print of Too Late for Tears (aka. Killer Bait) that I have seen so far is included in the terrific 5 Film Noir Killer Classics 6-DVD set (where one entire DVD is entirely devoted to great special features) and it costs less than this turkey.

For the price, Image should have put out a better quality print than what was used in this disc. You can see this same print on a dvd called "Film Noir Triple Feature Vol. 1". This film has an alternate title of "KILLER BAIT" which is available as a better quality print in a 6 disc set called "5 Film Noir Killer Classics". I'm so glad that i was able to rent this disc through the mail FIRST. The movie is good as far as content goes. I think i'll pass on this transfer of it, though.

I can't really add much to what's already been written about this under-rated, almost forgotten, classic film noir. Lizabeth Scott is the ultimate femme fatale, leaving a trail of dead bodies in her wake, while Dan Duryea shines as the foil. Great, snappy dialogue, especially from Duryea. There's a nice twist at the ending, which I obviously won't reveal here.
The DVD that I have, though, is easily one of the worst transfers ever - not what one would expect from a DVD in this day-and-age - it's skips, jumps and pops at various times and is overly-dark in some spots, although the dialogue that is missed is not really crucial to the story, but it is highly annoying. All in all, this has to be one of my personal favorite film noirs - along with Detour, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, D.O.A., Sorry, Wrong Number, The Killing, Raw Deal, Scarlet Street, The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers, Out Of The Past, The Asphalt Jungle, The Maltese Falcon, and Kansas City Confidential... (there are so many great ones in this genre!)

Too Late For Tears is a decent film and for fans of Film Noir, it is a real kick. Lizabeth Scott leaves a trail of dead bodies, lies and deceit that is classic noir. She could have used better direction, but the film still holds up.

That said, this new release from the Image "Dark City" collection is so technically awfull, it is an example of outright fraud. At this price, to release such a poor transfer with sound like this constitues "Grand Theft Video". No effort has been made to clean-up any part of the film. You might expect this from a $2.00 Garage Sale purchase, but not from a new release. It looks like a simple copy of the horrid Alpha release.

If you like Film Noir, please join me in wrting Image Entertainment to let them know how offended you are by this flim-flam tactic. Enough Said.

Buyer beware. Image Entertainment/Dark City has used the exact same print of this film as was used for the budget-line DVD from Alpha Video/Gotham Distribution. The picture quality is so bad, it's virtually unwatchable. Right from the start, the picture is jittery, as if it's running in a broken projector. Everything is out of focus -- this must be a fifth or sixth generation print, not even close to broadcast quality. The picture is littered with grain, specks, scratches, you name it. Several nighttime scenes are absolutely pitch-black -- you can't see anything at all on the screen. And there are so many missing frames that the movie keeps lurching forward like a bad japanese animation film.This is the first release in Image Entertainment's "Dark City" series. I hope it's also the last. Image Entertainment has done a huge disservice to film noir fans. Instead of hunting down a better source print (or at least a second print to provide the missing frames) and doing even a halfway decent restoration job, Image presents a DVD that is no better than the budget-priced Alpha release, even though the Image release costs much more. Fans of old movies who are accustomed to the superior restoration work that's been done on DVD's from companies like Warner and Columbia, will be sorely disappointed by the inferior quality of this release. "Too Late For Tears," while not a classic, is a better than average example of 40's film noir. It deserves better treatment than this -- and DVD buyers deserve more respect. I for one will never buy another DVD from Image Entertainment.

The "fatal woman" was an essential -- if misogynistic -- underpinning of film noir, and Lizabeth Scott here plays one of its most irredeemable examples. During a wild night chase, a bagful of stolen money appears -- presto -- in the car she and her husband are driving. Her greed so overwhelms her that she turns into a scheming, ruthless vixen. Dan Duryea is on hand to slap her around a bit (his specialty), and Dan DeFore -- an avuncular figure from 50s television -- pops up as an ambiguous figure from her past. The plot is implausible fun, but Scott looks far more drawn and haggard than she did just a couple years earlier in Dead Reckoning (the fault of cinematography or dissipation?). Beware: this print is taped at EP speed, with sudden jumps and other blemishes, as though it was taken from a very bad print; the night scenes are close to unviewable. But then Too Late for Tears is is no masterpiece of light and shadow; at the price, however, it's a servicable thriller you probably won't go back to very often.

This is the worst quality DVD we have ever received and have already sent it back for a refund. It was obviously taped from TV with annoying cuts and missing footage. The overall quality was abysmal. We rent and buy lots of older films and this is the worst one we have EVER gotten. Whoever packaged this should be ashamed. In addition, the title was misspelled on the package (to instead of too). That should have been a tip off to the quality of the DVD.

David Forehand's review is perfectly stated, and I cannot add anything more to it, other than I would give this film only 4 stars due to the terrible quality of the DVD transfer. The copy I watched is produced by Alpha Video Recorders, and is the very worst I have seen.

But the film noir is terrific, and I am glad to have been able to see it, even though the transfer is so bad. If this is the only way we can get this 1949 classic, then it is worth the low cost of the film.

"Too Late for Tears" is an archetypal film noir chock full of noir staples: a brutish tough-talking criminal, a lovely femme fatale, an innocent victim, murder, extortion, and memorable one-liners...all for the love of money. Roy Huggins wrote the screenplay based on own "Saturday Evening Post" serial. Lizabeth Scott reprises the ambitious, manipulative role she had in "Dead Reckoning", but with a more sophisticated character and superior script this time. Dan Duryea is wonderfully slimy and smart-alecky, as always. Often called "the screen's No. 1 heel", Duryea could play a violent jerk like no one else. His delivery of great hard-boiled lines is thoroughly convincing, as is his tendency to smack people around. But it's Duryea's ability to convey self-defeat that impresses me the most. He can evoke sympathy for his devilish characters.

Jane and Alan Palmer quarrel on their way to a party one evening. Jane (Lizabeth Scott) wants to go back home, so Alan (Arthur Kennedy) reluctantly turns the car around. As they turn, someone in a passing car throws a bag full of money into their back seat. Alan wants to turn the money over to police, but Jane convinces him to hold onto it temporarily. The next day, an unsavory character named Danny Fuller (Dan Duryea) comes looking for Alan and the money. Jane stalls him, but another stranger has appeared at just the wrong time. A man claiming to be have been Alan's war buddy, Don Blake (Don DeFore), is asking questions and getting friendly with Alan's already suspicious sister Kathy (Kristine Miller).

Jane Arnold isn't one of the best-known femmes fatales, but she's one of the most relentless. Her obsessive self-interest doesn't leave room for any sympathy as this spider lady proves too cold-blooded for even career criminal Danny. "You know, tiger, I didn't know they made'em as beautiful as you are, or as smart...or as hard, " he says. Danny and Jane are a conniving, adversarial, sexually charged pair, in stark contrast to the earnest romance of Don Blake and Kathy Palmer. "Too Late for Tears" isn't among the most thematically sophisticated film noirs, but it's not superficial either. The main characters are three-dimensional and terrifically portrayed. Fans of noir will find Dan Duryea's cad and Lizabeth Scott's femme fatale thoroughly entertaining.

The DVD (Image Entertainment 2003): This isn't a good print of the film. It is full of white specks and black lines. There are also some crackles in the sound. Worse, there are several splices which cause missing dialogue. The film is enjoyable but, unfortunately, not worth owning in this condition. Bonus features include noir filmographies for 4 members of the cast and crew, "Still and Lobby Cards" displaying 13 still photos from the film and 4 lobby cards, and 2 "documentaries". The documentaries are interviews with author and film noir historian Eddie Muller. Muller's discussions are not in depth but would be interesting to anyone who is new to these actors. In the "Lizabeth Scott Documentary" (5 minutes), Muller talks about Scott's career, her unique qualities, her roles, and the scandal that ended her career. In the "Dan Duryea Documentary" (8 minutes) Muller discusses Dan Duryea's noir career and the "sadistic dandy" persona that made him famous.