Public domain film noir: Too Late for Tears (1949)

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Director: Byron Haskin
Writer: Roy Huggins
Cinematographer: William C. Mellor

Plot: This is a 1949 black-and-white public domain film noir taking place in the Los Angeles area. Jane Palmer is the icy cool femme fatale. The story opens with Jane and her husband driving through the Hollywood Hills when a suitcase full of cash is thrown into their car by mistake. It was money to be delivered to a crook Danny Fuller. Jane kills her first husband Bob Blanchard when his money runs out (though this occurs as background, discovered by his brother Don, who is investigating Jane under the pseudonym "Don Blake"). Then she kills her second husband Alan Palmer when he fights her attempt to keep the suitcase of cash instead of turning it over to the police. Then she kills Danny Fuller after he tracks her down and insists on getting his cash back. She escapes to Mexico. But Don Blanchard follows her and, through some trickery, forces her to disclose she has taken the money with her. As the Mexican police try to apprehend Jane, she trips on her hotel balcony and falls over the railing to her death.


TRIVIA:

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  Scott's first femme fatale role was in the 1947 film Dead Reckoning, with Humphrey Bogart. She played in another film with Don DeFore (You Came Along) and with Dan Duryea (Silver Lode), and several with Kristine Miller. Scott is still living but has been retired from acting since 1972.
  
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  The screenplay was by Roy Huggins, who also wrote the novel which it was based on. Huggins later became a writer, director, and producer of films and TV series at Warner Brothers, 20th Century-Fox, and Universal studios.