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You told me what's lost is lost, but baby, you're going to miss that plane
Although I have owned the beautifully restored Blu-Ray/DVD of Byron Haskin's Too Late for Tears (1949) since its release in 2016, I never watched any of the special features before tonight—I generally don't, for the same reasons I don't listen to audio commentaries or podcasts or watch video essays, but I was making an exception. It rewarded, albeit with some frustration. According to Eddie Muller in "Chance of a Lifetime: The Making of Too Late for Tears" (2016):
They wanted Joan Crawford to play the lead, Kirk Douglas was going to play Danny Fuller, Wendell Corey was going to play the Don DeFore role, and none of that actually happened.
Bullet dodged on Crawford. Not only would her casting have deprived Lizabeth Scott of what has come to be considered her signature role, she would have been too much the star—too indomitable, too glamorous—whereas much of the shock and thrill of Scott's performance as Jane Palmer comes from the character's discovery of her own infinitely deferrable moral event horizon, an average all-American housewife blossoming into a stone antiheroine whose initial resort to the male-manipulating tactics of the femme fatale is soon discarded in favor of her own free agency with a suitcase full of C-notes and a pistol in her hand and no man to slow her down, at least until the inevitable embodiment of the patriarchy catches up. "Chances like this are never offered twice . . . When I think of losing it, I get deathly sick inside." Both Julie Kirgo and Kim Morgan in the same featurette comment on her vocal and visual likeness to June Allyson, the shadow side of the girl next door. Whatever Crawford could have brought to the part, it wouldn't have been that brilliantly negative self-actualization, the cold shoulder that Jane turns to the audience, too, as if she doesn't need us so much that she'd let us in on her secrets. She doesn't care if we disapprove or love her. She wants to get to Mexico City and be left alone.
I like Douglas too much to consider him a dodged bullet per se, but I wouldn't want to take Danny Fuller away from Dan Duryea—he had one of the best parts in his rogue's gallery as the grifter in over his head imagining he can handle a woman whose husband hasn't been dead five minutes before she's turned the tables on her attempted blackmailer with the self-same gun, his role of ever more reluctant accomplice a clever subversion of his specialty in face-slapping heels. I mean it as a compliment when I say that Duryea was good at second-raters and one of the complementary pleasures of Too Late for Tears is watching this apparent envoy of the dark city's corruption totally wash out when up against the quiet desperation of the suburbs, his jaunty, shoddy confidence giving way to the horror of a heavy who's a lot lighter weight than he gave out. "At the risk of seeming tedious," he reminds the small, steel-blonde woman who lies as seamlessly as a smile, "just where did you stash my cash?" He never does get a real answer. Douglas was never so convincingly small-time, even if his prior noir record supports that he could have pulled off the sleaze and ultimately the vulnerability of the part. Nothing in his own screen persona would have packed the same punch as watching Duryea collapse.
Obviously, Corey is the one-third of the version of Too Late for Tears I want to rent from the hell of a good universe next door, not just for partisan reasons, but because DeFore is so bland in the part of Don Blake that I had to see him play a rogue in a noir Western before I could take any notice of him. Part of the problem is that while the character is theoretically compelling—an avenger in the guise of an amiable stranger, his interest in the present whereabouts of Alan Palmer sharpening all out of proportion to the vagueness of their purported wartime acquaintance—in narrative practice he is superfluous on a level I am not convinced a film shot in 1948 could have permitted itself to recognize, namely that with Kristine Miller's Kathy Palmer already suspicious of her brother's disappearance and her sister-in-law's sudden stories of estrangement hinting at an affair, the only reason for her role as investigator to be doubled and then supplanted by a man is the Code ringing the curtain down hard on gender roles, all the more insultingly in a genre where women can detect as successfully as men in their own right. Especially in light of the efficiency with which Jane blitzes through the men in her life, it should have been irresistible poetic justice for a woman to bring her to book at last. Alas, the climactic confrontation is left to Don, laying the cards of her crimes on the table along with his own deceptions, and even with the gloves off he still doesn't feel like a real, driven, disarming person as opposed to some cardboard standee of the restoration of social order. My alt-historical bet is that even without help from the screenplay adapted by Roy Huggins from his own 1947 novel, Corey whom I haven't yet seen be forgettable even in functionally stock parts could have made this character at least interesting to watch on his way to the unsurprising ending. We shouldn't be able to tell so readily whose side he's on, with his airily shifty stories that don't seem to know the name of Alan's squadron or where in England they were stationed or even his sister's name, if he's pursuing Kathy out of honest attraction or because she represents a lead on Alan or Jane, even his motives for gumshoeing around these loose ends of money and murder when so little about him adds up. DeFore doesn't bring him any shadows, even when he's assigned lines like "And if we can't make a deal, I'm going back and drag him up again." In noir or out of it, ambiguity is something I don't worry about Corey's ability to deliver.
I have no idea how Arthur Kennedy got into this picture as Alan, but since his turn as a decent, conventional husband marks one of the few times I have seen him outside of a narrow, if nicely shaded band of villain to antihero, it makes an entertaining change, even if, as noted by Eddie Muller, it does rather dictate his longevity in the plot. Just the complacency with which he assures his wife that it would take "more than a hundred grand" to perturb their marriage would do him no credit in a regular melodrama.
After I had gone to the trouble of celebrating the long-overdue unpacking of my DVD collection by firing up one of its discs, of course, I discovered that the special feature I had made a point of watching can be found on YouTube, as can variously public domain versions of the film itself. I never think of it as one of my favorite noirs, but it imprinted me successfully on Lizabeth Scott and I love how little in the way of special pleading it feels the need to offer for her protagonist, granting her exactly the same antisocial latitude as her male counterparts until it's time for the moral. I love how unconsciously Danny switches from calling her "honey" to calling her "Tiger," disintegrating in front of our eyes from sharp-suited danger to shirtsleeved simp. I love the too few scenes where she and Kathy are allowed to face off, each woman measuring what she knows or suspects or fears about the other. I like the night-charged photography by William C. Mellor and feel the production was entirely justified in skimping on the sets to afford the actors, except for Don DeFore, which is where we came in. At least swap him with Kennedy if we have to keep this universe's cast. Really, Scott would have eaten any of them alive. This stash brought to you by my grand backers at Patreon.
They wanted Joan Crawford to play the lead, Kirk Douglas was going to play Danny Fuller, Wendell Corey was going to play the Don DeFore role, and none of that actually happened.
Bullet dodged on Crawford. Not only would her casting have deprived Lizabeth Scott of what has come to be considered her signature role, she would have been too much the star—too indomitable, too glamorous—whereas much of the shock and thrill of Scott's performance as Jane Palmer comes from the character's discovery of her own infinitely deferrable moral event horizon, an average all-American housewife blossoming into a stone antiheroine whose initial resort to the male-manipulating tactics of the femme fatale is soon discarded in favor of her own free agency with a suitcase full of C-notes and a pistol in her hand and no man to slow her down, at least until the inevitable embodiment of the patriarchy catches up. "Chances like this are never offered twice . . . When I think of losing it, I get deathly sick inside." Both Julie Kirgo and Kim Morgan in the same featurette comment on her vocal and visual likeness to June Allyson, the shadow side of the girl next door. Whatever Crawford could have brought to the part, it wouldn't have been that brilliantly negative self-actualization, the cold shoulder that Jane turns to the audience, too, as if she doesn't need us so much that she'd let us in on her secrets. She doesn't care if we disapprove or love her. She wants to get to Mexico City and be left alone.
I like Douglas too much to consider him a dodged bullet per se, but I wouldn't want to take Danny Fuller away from Dan Duryea—he had one of the best parts in his rogue's gallery as the grifter in over his head imagining he can handle a woman whose husband hasn't been dead five minutes before she's turned the tables on her attempted blackmailer with the self-same gun, his role of ever more reluctant accomplice a clever subversion of his specialty in face-slapping heels. I mean it as a compliment when I say that Duryea was good at second-raters and one of the complementary pleasures of Too Late for Tears is watching this apparent envoy of the dark city's corruption totally wash out when up against the quiet desperation of the suburbs, his jaunty, shoddy confidence giving way to the horror of a heavy who's a lot lighter weight than he gave out. "At the risk of seeming tedious," he reminds the small, steel-blonde woman who lies as seamlessly as a smile, "just where did you stash my cash?" He never does get a real answer. Douglas was never so convincingly small-time, even if his prior noir record supports that he could have pulled off the sleaze and ultimately the vulnerability of the part. Nothing in his own screen persona would have packed the same punch as watching Duryea collapse.
Obviously, Corey is the one-third of the version of Too Late for Tears I want to rent from the hell of a good universe next door, not just for partisan reasons, but because DeFore is so bland in the part of Don Blake that I had to see him play a rogue in a noir Western before I could take any notice of him. Part of the problem is that while the character is theoretically compelling—an avenger in the guise of an amiable stranger, his interest in the present whereabouts of Alan Palmer sharpening all out of proportion to the vagueness of their purported wartime acquaintance—in narrative practice he is superfluous on a level I am not convinced a film shot in 1948 could have permitted itself to recognize, namely that with Kristine Miller's Kathy Palmer already suspicious of her brother's disappearance and her sister-in-law's sudden stories of estrangement hinting at an affair, the only reason for her role as investigator to be doubled and then supplanted by a man is the Code ringing the curtain down hard on gender roles, all the more insultingly in a genre where women can detect as successfully as men in their own right. Especially in light of the efficiency with which Jane blitzes through the men in her life, it should have been irresistible poetic justice for a woman to bring her to book at last. Alas, the climactic confrontation is left to Don, laying the cards of her crimes on the table along with his own deceptions, and even with the gloves off he still doesn't feel like a real, driven, disarming person as opposed to some cardboard standee of the restoration of social order. My alt-historical bet is that even without help from the screenplay adapted by Roy Huggins from his own 1947 novel, Corey whom I haven't yet seen be forgettable even in functionally stock parts could have made this character at least interesting to watch on his way to the unsurprising ending. We shouldn't be able to tell so readily whose side he's on, with his airily shifty stories that don't seem to know the name of Alan's squadron or where in England they were stationed or even his sister's name, if he's pursuing Kathy out of honest attraction or because she represents a lead on Alan or Jane, even his motives for gumshoeing around these loose ends of money and murder when so little about him adds up. DeFore doesn't bring him any shadows, even when he's assigned lines like "And if we can't make a deal, I'm going back and drag him up again." In noir or out of it, ambiguity is something I don't worry about Corey's ability to deliver.
I have no idea how Arthur Kennedy got into this picture as Alan, but since his turn as a decent, conventional husband marks one of the few times I have seen him outside of a narrow, if nicely shaded band of villain to antihero, it makes an entertaining change, even if, as noted by Eddie Muller, it does rather dictate his longevity in the plot. Just the complacency with which he assures his wife that it would take "more than a hundred grand" to perturb their marriage would do him no credit in a regular melodrama.
After I had gone to the trouble of celebrating the long-overdue unpacking of my DVD collection by firing up one of its discs, of course, I discovered that the special feature I had made a point of watching can be found on YouTube, as can variously public domain versions of the film itself. I never think of it as one of my favorite noirs, but it imprinted me successfully on Lizabeth Scott and I love how little in the way of special pleading it feels the need to offer for her protagonist, granting her exactly the same antisocial latitude as her male counterparts until it's time for the moral. I love how unconsciously Danny switches from calling her "honey" to calling her "Tiger," disintegrating in front of our eyes from sharp-suited danger to shirtsleeved simp. I love the too few scenes where she and Kathy are allowed to face off, each woman measuring what she knows or suspects or fears about the other. I like the night-charged photography by William C. Mellor and feel the production was entirely justified in skimping on the sets to afford the actors, except for Don DeFore, which is where we came in. At least swap him with Kennedy if we have to keep this universe's cast. Really, Scott would have eaten any of them alive. This stash brought to you by my grand backers at Patreon.
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You're welcome! The information came up early in the featurette and I had frankly never imagined anyone other than Lizabeth Scott in Too Late for Tears—it's not just that the film introduced me to her, she's so good in it, I can't think of another actress whom I would have wanted to see attempt the part and certainly not Joan Crawford. I had never pictured anyone other than Duryea opposite her, either, like watching one of his famous roles unravel. Douglas appears to have made Champion (1949) instead and I'm just as glad.
I need to learn more about studio contracts and loan-outs. I have been interested for some time in how films assume their final forms, but my knowledge of the processes is haphazardly acquired.
I agree: Lizabeth Scott brings something to it that could have never been replaced! You capture her so well: "the shadow side of the girl next door" is such a good way of putting it!
Thank you! Admittedly this film made a strong impression, but I just really like her. I should write more about her: she's yet another of the people who seem to have had much less of a career than they deserved. I rewatched Pitfall (1948) earlier this month, but my brain was unfortunately on hiatus at the time and I suspect it of still not really clocking back in.
I really like the vulnerable-yet-hard vibe she gave to so many of her characters. And her voice!
Yes! I love the effect where her voice can be so much older than the rest of her and some of her films knew to play with it.
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That's it exactly! I think I first saw her in "The strange love of Martha Ivers", where she's so naive and yet so jaded, and it's a combination that really works. What's your favourite of her movies? There are so many I still haven't seen, and I'd love a rec or two--her voice is always lovely to listen to! (Did you know that she made an album in the late 50s? How cool is that?)
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Same! Some of hers never seem to come around on the streaming services I have access to. And then this month Watch TCM blew up before I could catch The Racket (1951), which was just obnoxious timing.
and I'd love a rec or two--her voice is always lovely to listen to!
She's spectacular in Pitfall, if you haven't seen it: she doesn't dominate the story in the same way as Too Late for Tears, but she's so much more complicated than the men around her can see and the film wants the audience to see her, too. I know
(Did you know that she made an album in the late 50s? How cool is that?)
I know of it, but I've never heard any of it! After all those years of being dubbed, it seems only fair.
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And here's her album. I like the Cole Porter cover version!
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Oh, wow! Thank you!
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No. I like Arthur Kennedy, even though I short-shrift him every time I write about this film! I love that it has been treasured and rediscovered and restored to the point of special features. Richard Duryea, the younger of Dan's two sons, was interviewed for this one. He talks a little about how much his father liked working with Scott and affirms his father's legendary niceness: "He was mild—other than yelling at his agent."
(I am now hoping that Stark House Press reprints the original novel as part of their film noir series, just so I can read it for comparison.)
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I love the concept of an infinitely deferrable moral event horizon, also the notion of crashing and burning when faced with the suburbs, also the phrase " the small, steel-blonde woman who lies as seamlessly as a smile" (whoa)
--Anyway, glad this commentary was worth your time; every now and then I've been known to listen to a podcast episode and like it, but mainly: NO.
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I never had any difficulty with lectures, but I took a lot of notes.
I love the concept of an infinitely deferrable moral event horizon, also the notion of crashing and burning when faced with the suburbs, also the phrase " the small, steel-blonde woman who lies as seamlessly as a smile" (whoa)
It's really a very good film. Which I knew at the time when I saw it, but in hindsight it was valuable to encounter so early in my study of film noir, too.
--Anyway, glad this commentary was worth your time; every now and then I've been known to listen to a podcast episode and like it, but mainly: NO.
Thank you! I appreciate the nope-out solidarity.
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For what it's worth, I understand that in the book, the Don Blake character is Jane's deceased husband's son, not his brother. I still have yet to read the original text for myself, but a number of affordable copies have since hit the second-hand market, and I even managed to find the original serialization in digitized copies of The Saturday Evening Post--so I'm sure I'll get around to reading it one of these days, if only as a comparison piece. From what I hear, Jane is more ruthless and maybe not as nuanced as she is in the film, but I guess we'll (eventually) see.
Dan Duryea as Danny Fuller, though--chef kiss perfection, 10/10, no notes, and I will accept no substitutions.
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Did you have anyone in mind at the time?
Wendell Corey as Don Blake, though, would be interesting.
I just basically trust him to be weirder than Don DeFore.
(Or, better yet, as you suggested, remove the Don Blake character altogether, and make Kathy the sole, antagonistic seeker of justice. Oh, how I would love to see that version of the story!)
Right? It's right there in the schema of the script's gender relations! You'd do it for Ella Raines!
I still have yet to read the original text for myself, but a number of affordable copies have since hit the second-hand market, and I even managed to find the original serialization in digitized copies of The Saturday Evening Post--so I'm sure I'll get around to reading it one of these days, if only as a comparison piece.
I would love to hear what you think of it when you do. I trust your ability to read in this genre/period and it was no go in my local library system the last time I checked.
Dan Duryea as Danny Fuller, though--chef kiss perfection, 10/10, no notes, and I will accept no substitutions.
+1. I saw him right on the heels of The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945), too, which was pretty much perfect.
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I can't say I did, no. Still don't. :(
I just basically trust him to be weirder than Don DeFore.
So true! I'll admit I almost kind of like DeFore here (despite myself), purely because his whole "golly-gee-whiz" vibe is so bizarrely out of place? But I would also take just about anyone else in the role, if you presented me with the possibility, and Wendell Corey could bring some much-needed subtle menace and ambiguity re: his relationship with Kathy.
On the topic of DeFore, I've since heard him described on a podcast as being (paraphrased), "You know when you were a kid and took the head off a Barbie doll, and then when you put it back on it never looked the same? Don DeFore is like if you did that with Ray Milland"--and now I can never unsee it, pfft.
If you happen to want The Sat. Ev. Post links with the original serialization, let me know--I think it's spread across five issues.
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I cracked up instantly on reading this sentence, so now I suspect I can't, either.
If you happen to want The Sat. Ev. Post links with the original serialization, let me know--I think it's spread across five issues.
Sure! I may or may not like it as much as the film, but I'm curious. Thank you.
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It's an uncannily accurate description, hah.
Re: the serialization, I was mistaken; it's actually in six issues. But here you go! This is the link to the first part, and a link to each subsequent issue can be found with the technical info, below the reading display:
archive.org/details/sim_saturday-evening-post_1947-04-19_219_42
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Thank you very much!