Too Late for Tears

A couple driving at night have a bag of cash thrown into their car. The husband wants to go to the police, the wife does not. The longer the bag stays, the clearer her resolve becomes, and the question of who is looking for the money slides into second place. Byron Haskin directed. Lizabeth Scott plays Jane Palmer, Dan Duryea the blackmailer. Duryea's character shifts from the one making threats to the one receiving them, a reversal the genre still treasures. The film was effectively lost for decades. Its copyright was never renewed, so it circulated in bad prints in cheap box sets. The Film Noir Foundation ran a five-year rescue, combining a 1949 nitrate dupe negative found in France, a decomposing 1955 reissue print and a 16mm television print. The restoration was done at the UCLA archive and broadcast in 2015. Who it is for: viewers who like noir with a woman at the centre. Who it is not for: anyone about to click a free copy online; that copy is not this film.