| Femmes Fatales | Nov 23 2023 |
Not just another brick in the wall.
Lizabeth Scott, who you see above, has an outsize legacy in film history thanks to her appearances in several film noir landmarks: Dead Reckoning, I Walk Alone, Pitfall, and Too Late for Tears come to mind. She also appeared in Dark City, Paid in Full, The Racket, the bizarre British noir-adjacent melodrama Stolen Face, and others. The above promo image was made when she appeared in one of her best movies—the Barbara Stanwyck headlined film noir The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, from 1946.
The Strange Love of Martha IversDead ReckoningI Walk AlonePitfallToo Late for TearsDark CityPaid in FullThe RacketStolen FaceLizabeth ScottBarbara Stanwyckfilm noir
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 8 2018 |
Lizabeth Scott finds herself floating on an ocean of tears.
Playwright John Guare once compared money to life preservers. People are just as desperate for money as someone in the ocean is for a way to float. They may be swimming fine, but without that life preserver they could go down in rough water and disappear without a trace. In Too Late for Tears a married couple that are swimming fine suddenly find themselves with an excess of life preservers when a bag of money lands in their car. We mean it literally—it comes out of the night and plops into the back seat of their convertible. It's a lot of money—$100,000, which would be more than a million bucks today. The couple don't really need this cash but they can't make themselves give it up. Which leads to serious problems when the crook who accidentally threw the bag into their car comes looking for it.
The promo poster is interesting. It shows bad guy Dan Duryea trying to make Lizabeth Scott tell him where the money went. But Scott's tough. She'll endure anything to keep the hundred grand. As an allegory about greed Too Late for Tears runs on a couple of tracks, but the way it suggests that the craving for money can make a woman forgive—or perhaps pretend to forgive—the unforgivable is a pretty potent commentary. Some viewers may find the very suggestion offensive, which is where thinking of the money as life preservers helps. What price wouldn't a rational person swimming in the ocean pay to guarantee that they would never drown? Too Late for Tears asks the question and the answer isn't pretty. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1949.
The promo poster is interesting. It shows bad guy Dan Duryea trying to make Lizabeth Scott tell him where the money went. But Scott's tough. She'll endure anything to keep the hundred grand. As an allegory about greed Too Late for Tears runs on a couple of tracks, but the way it suggests that the craving for money can make a woman forgive—or perhaps pretend to forgive—the unforgivable is a pretty potent commentary. Some viewers may find the very suggestion offensive, which is where thinking of the money as life preservers helps. What price wouldn't a rational person swimming in the ocean pay to guarantee that they would never drown? Too Late for Tears asks the question and the answer isn't pretty. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1949.
