Too Late for Tears (1949) Pressbook
“Look, you can’t say she was like an M&M, hard on the outside, soft on the inside. You just can’t, it’s goofy.” I summed it up as best I could, but Zombos wasn’t buying it.
“I fail to see why I cannot say that. It describes Lizabeth Scott’s persona perfectly,” he countered. “And Too Late for Tears shows her like that, although perhaps much less than her usually less murderous and selfish characters.”
“I’ll admit her low, cigarette-smoke voice, her noirish demeanor, and her small facial movements and that stillness about her add to one alluring, somewhat cool and aloof, possibly dangerous if cornered, character, but she is definitely not like an M&M here. Maybe a Twix, maybe, if you want to push it for what she plays here.”
He wasn’t buying my Twix take, but he softened up and we moved on. Shot around Los Angeles landmarks and at Republic Studios, the movie, which may have been a box office keeper or a sleeper depending on the source you were reading, had Dan Duryea playing his perfectly nasty role, Don DeFore before he hired a maid in Hazel, and Kristine Miller, a veteran of westerns and noirs. Lest I forget, Arthur Kennedy lent his mug and gravitas too. The story is typical noir: an accidental event leads to intentional murder. What would you do if someone tossed a bag of money into your car and sped off?
“Okay, what if, instead of an M&M, I say she was like a Choco No No instead?” said Zombos, sparking the argument again. It was going to be a long night.
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