The Damned Treasure

A woman's lifelong sense of financial inadequacy finds physical manifestation in a stolen bag of cash in 1949's Too Late for Tears. Directed by Byron Haskin just before he made the definitive film version of Treasure Island (a fact that becomes more intriguing the more I think about it), this film noir about an exceptionally ruthless femme fatale is captivating and intricately intelligent.

Lizbeth Scott stars as Jane Palmer. She and her husband, Alan (Arthur Kennedy), are driving home one night after deciding not to go to a party because Jane can't stand the thought of people looking down on her. Suddenly, a passing car tosses a bag into their back seat and another car starts to chase them. Jane urges Alan to flee.

The bag is stuffed with tens of thousands of dollars. Alan wants to turn it into the police but Jane argues the money is probably untraceable and, if they wait to spend it, and spend it carefully, they can just keep it. Doesn't sound so hard, at least not until Dan Duryea shows up while Alan's at work.

He's playing a tough named Danny and as nasty and threatening as he is, Lizbeth Scott starts to give you the impression that she's even worse, something he notes with admiration a few times. While he's just a thug looking for a fast track to easy living, Jane's a woman in a constant state of anxiety. This cash represents the first shot she's ever had to climb out of the pit she's lived in all her life. As she explains at one point, she grew up in a white collar family that had less money than their neighbours, so when it came to keeping up with the Joneses, her life was a constant series of losses. So when she does kill, she might truly regret it--she certainly seems conflicted. But the monster of warped self-perception won't let her stop.

The cast is all superb--Scott, Kennedy, and Duryea. Don DeFore shows up as a mysterious and off-puttingly affable character. His past and his role in this affair are intriguingly murky and I enjoyed watching one clue after another shift the impression his character made on other characters.

Lizbeth Scott looks so old in the movie, I thought she was at least fifty, but it turns out she was only 28 at the time. I guess she had the same issue as Susan Sarandon, one of those people who's looked 80 since she was 20. Her apparent age adds some edge to her desperation. Maybe the sense of the clock running down would make her extra frantic to raise her economic status.

Too Late for Tears is available on Amazon Prime.