The Film Noir Foundation, creators of the San Francisco-based Noir City Film Festival and its companion travelling version, expanded its purpose a few years ago to raise money to restore orphaned films, those independent productions made outside the studio system in partnerships formed in some cases to make a single film. Two of their most recent restorations have come to disc in lovely sets: the superb Woman on the Run (Flicker Alley, Blu-ray+DVD) with Ann Sheridan and the fascinating Too Late for Tears (Flicker Alley, Blu-ray+DVD) with Lizabeth Scott.
In Too Late for Tears (1949), Lizabeth Scott plays one of the most ruthless heroines in film noir in, a status-conscious middle-class wife who will do anything to keep her hands on a suitcase of cash that lands in her lap by accident. Arthur Kennedy is her husband who wants to take it to the police but is tempted enough to hold onto it for a night or two (just to think over the ramifications, you know) and Dan Duryea is a mercenary crook who comes looking for the cash (payment in a blackmail scheme) and ends up her wary partner. Scott has played her share of heroines and villains both but here she’s pure avarice and cold-blooded greed. She stares at the money piled on the bed with wolfish hunger and childish ecstasy and she’s ready to murder to keep it. The money doesn’t corrupt her, it merely unleashes her suppressed greed. She’s nervous and perhaps even reluctant to carry out the first—fate steps in with a nudge when she hesitates—but she follows through without a regret and doesn’t even flinch the second time. Scott may be a poor man’s Bacall but is no man’s fool. Duryea is in fine form as a weasel of an opportunist, sneering his dialogue in the early scenes and then slipping into disgust and drink as Scott slowly takes control of the partnership. In a genre defined by corrupt, ruthless, and conniving characters, this film features two of the most reprehensible and cold-blooded. Don DeFore is the old “army buddy” who hides his own secrets.
The budget went to the high-caliber stars, resulting in a somewhat starved production. The apartment sets are utterly bland and impersonal, almost generic, and Byron Haksin’s direction is perfunctory, as if rushed. The location shooting, however, is effective: the lonely roads in the canyons, the lake and the boat rental, the train station baggage check, and a few city street scenes. It’s a minor noir in the scheme of things but it has some major pleasure, not least of which are Scott’s utterly rapacious turn and Duryea as a sleaze who is appalled at depths of her amorality.
The film was produced independently of the Hollywood studios and fell into the public domain years ago, which meant that no one was looking after the film’s elements but plenty of labels putting out inferior versions from whatever battered TV print or video copy they could get their hands on. The Film Noir Foundation produced this restoration with UCLA Film and Television Archive, with support from the Hollywood Foreign Press, from an archival 35mm re-release print and a complete 16mm print. It shows minor wear and light scratches but is otherwise undamaged and a massive improvement over previous editions, with a solid, crisp image with strong (maybe too strong) contrasts and vivid detail. This is the definitive edition by a huge margin.
The set features both Blu-ray and DVD editions of the film, both with commentary by film noir historian Alan K. Rode (who gives us the histories of the players along with production details and critical observations), the 16-minute “Chance of a Lifetime: The Making of Too Late for Tears” with film noir historians Rode and Eddie Muller and film critics Kim Morgan and Julie Kirgo, and the shorter “A Wild Ride: Restoring Woman on the Run” with Muller and film archivist Scott McQueen, plus a booklet with stills, artwork, and an essay by Eddie Muller.
Woman on the Run (1950) is a much more compelling—and far more deftly directed—film even with its somewhat misleading title. Eleanor Johnson (Ann Sheridan) isn’t really on the run. It’s her estranged husband Frank (Ross Elliott) who has gone missing after witnessing a gangland killing. The killer has already taken a shot at him and the police want him to testify. He’s dubious of promises to keep him safe and Eleanor is on Frank’s side. Their marriage has become mere formality—they lead separate lives connected only by a shared address and a pet dog—and she answers the cops’ questions with acerbic remarks, but she’s the first to tip him off that the cops are looking for him. She slips the police surveillance easy enough but dogged, fast-talking reporter Danny Leggett (Dennis O’Keefe), a newspaperman with a mercenary streak and a snappy patter that could have come from the lively newspaper pictures of the early 1930s, is more resourceful. Danny joins her search for Frank across San Francisco, helping her track him down in return for the exclusive story.
“Frank’s done nothing wrong,” Eleanor argues, to which the veteran inspector replies, “Oh yes he has. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” That’s a classic film noir situation, the wrong man targeted by bad luck, but it’s just the starting point for the real story. Sheridan dishes out sardonic cracks with deadpan snap and O’Keefe matches her with snappy repartee delivered with an all-American grin as they go searching Frank’s old haunts. But Eleanor softens along the journey as she discovers new dimensions of her estranged husband on her odyssey. He’s simply a failed artist now doing window displays in a San Francisco department store as far as she’s concerned but as she turns detective she sees that he’s simply transformed his art into displays (many of which feature her likeness) and learns that he has a deadly medical condition, which he’s kept secret from her. The tart snap and cynical edge gives way to concern as her feelings are rekindled. In a genre known for predatory relationships, one-sided love affairs, and sexual obsession, this is the rare film noir that opens in indifference and resentment and becomes a story of rediscovery and renewal. Eleanor transforms from hard-bitten cynic to revived romantic as she falls in love with her husband all over again.
Director Norman Foster was a B-movie veteran who worked briefly with Orson Welles and it appears to have inspired him. delivers a film filled with unexpected dashes of character (the heavy accents of the dancers at a Chinese restaurant give way to all-American voices when the rubes are gone and they’re among friends) and marvelous style and atmosphere. Along with the usual picture postcard views, he takes the viewer through parts of San Francisco that aren’t part of the tourist checklist. He makes excellent use of location shooting, from the dynamic murder scene from the bottom of a plunging set of stone steps through the climax on the waterfront amusement park. The low angles and tilted framing give the shots a dramatic punch, but also suggests a world off balance, an appropriate state of affairs for characters uprooted from their familiar lives. The rollercoaster sequence is particularly effective, a marvelous metaphor for the panic, helplessness, and emotional turmoil of the rider trapped on the ride while a murder is underway.
The restoration is terrific. It’s not pristine, mind you, as the original negative was gone and the only complete original print destroyed in a fire a few years ago, but the British internegative (a copy of the original negative that was used to strike prints in Britain) was preserved by the BFI, who loaned it to UCLA for this restoration. The day scenes have a documentary immediacy, the night scenes are plunged in shadow, and all of it is crisp and clean with excellent contrasts.
Features both Blu-ray and DVD editions of the film, with commentary by Film Noir Foundation founder Eddie Muller (informative as always; Muller has long been a champion of the film and its interesting use of San Francisco locations), the 20-minute featurette “Love is a Rollercoaster: Woman on the Run Revisited” with Muller and film noir historian Alan K. Rode and film critics Kim Morgan and Julie Kirgo, the 5-minute “A Wild Ride: Restoring Woman on the Run” with Muller and film archivist Scott McQueen, the 7-minute video tour “Woman on the Run Locations Then and Now” with Brian Hollins (aka City Sleuth), and a 10-minute featurettes on the Noir City Film Festival, plus a booklet with stills, artwork, and an essay by Eddie Muller.
Cross-published with Cinephiled
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