TOO LATE FOR TEARS no stars

The title might suggest a weepie of sorts but "Too Late for Tears" is a film noir and a fairly mediocre one at that. It's actually got a very good story (by Roy Huggins from his 'Saturday Evening Post' serial), but the treatment is poor. Lizabeth Scott is the greedy femme fatale who will stop at nothing, including murder, to hold onto the bag of money that lands in her lap, or at least in her car. Scott was never much of an actress and she's terrible here. As the blackmailer whose money she steals Dan Duryea is his usual excellent self and there's a nice supporting turn from Arthur Kennedy as Scott's sap of her husband. As I said it's got a decent enough story but director Byron Haskin wasn't the man to do anything with it and it just limps along to its rather torturous conclusion.