When driving down the highway to make it home one night, Jane and Alan Palmer have a bag filled with cash chucked into there car. When they looking inside the bag they find it filled with cash, $60,000 in used money. They continue down the road for home, Alan wants to turn it in but Jane wants to keep it all. They are then chased by the car which threw the bag and try in vain to escape it. They twist and turn, speed along and cut through the lanes. After a time they finally lose it and head home. Once home the decisions on what to do with the money prove to be leathal.

Wow. Film noir is an often over mined genre. On occasion you turn up a gem however and this is a belter. The A grade noir class has another addition. It has the usual conventions and archetypes. Desire of money and sex, greed for better, murder of loved ones, murder of people in the way and female sexuality at odds with social ‘convention’. Lizbeth Scott plays her role here to perfection and adds an ice cold murderess with cutting lines. By using her body and its slight but unsettling manner, she adds tension and sexuality. She is the reason the film is so good and why I watched it twice. She is like a darker Bacall and that is saying something. Now visually the film is  super condensed and shifts between spaces of deception and truth. This makes the artifice dissolve a little but you will forgive that. The film is great in its minimal but very effective script and check out the score. It is a gem for all of these reason and also the great revenge elements that flow through the piece!

The discs look good and the transfer from the 35mm has been loving crafted by the film noir association and UCLA. The sound is clean and crisp. So much so as to allow the score to shine. Rode commentary is informative but is a little hard on the film noir novice. The making of is the gold leaf though. Start with this and enjoy the film….

• Brand new restoration of original 35mm vault elements by UCLA Film & Television Archive
• Presented in High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD
• Original mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio Commentary by writer, historian, and film programmer Alan K. Rode
• Chance Of A Lifetime: The Making of Too Late For Tears – a new behind-the-scenes examination of the film’s original production produced by Steven Smith and the Film Noir Foundation and featuring noir experts Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan, and Julie Kirgo
• Tiger Hunt: Restoring Too Late For Tears – a chronicle of the multi-year mission to rescue this “lost” noir classic produced by Steven Smith and the Film Noir Foundation
• Gallery featuring rare photographs, poster art and original lobby cards
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin
• Booklet featuring new writing by writer and noir expert Brian Light