The greatest movie ever made..!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Surprised that Arthur Kennedy, who was a best supporting actor Oscar nominee the same year for "Champion," had a relatively small but pivotal part in this excellent film noir.Lizabeth Scott is tremendous as the cunning, vicious murderer who with husband Kennedy have money thrown into their car and they decide to keep it. Kennedy, as the reluctant husband, is quite good in the part.When Dan Duryea shows up, things begin to go downhill for our couple as Duryea had thrown the money, that is, blackmail into their car. He begins a love relationship with Scott which ultimately leads to Kennedy's death. Surprisingly, the Duryea character becomes much weaker as the picture goes on, until he also falls victim to the Scott woman, who will stop at nothing to keep the money.Wait until you see who Don De Fore really is in the film. A tense, exciting and often riveting drama.

Since Film-Noir was a Genre that Didn't Become a Fully-Fledged Awareness Until After the Fact, a Perfect Example Rarely Resulted and most of the Movies had at least some Ingredients that were Antithesis to the Style. For Example, In this one all of the Interior Scenes are Brightly Lit and very Standard Stuff with Little Lighting Style and even Less Reflection of the Mood that was Present.While Not the Smoothest of Chandleresque Dialog, Writer Roy Huggins Manages quite a few Zingers Interspersed among some Clunk. Director Byron Haskin's Noir is at times Elongated and some of it Feels Like Filler. But the Things that do Work are Excellent Examples of Film-Noir.It's Lizabeth Scott's Femme-Fatale Film and Everything and Everybody Spirals around Her. The Audience can See Through Her more than the Smitten Men She Seduces. Dan Duryea has a Literal Breakdown, and Her Husband, Arthur Kennedy's Fate is Sealed once the Money Shows up and He Resists Keeping it.Only Dom Defore, is Immune to Her Charms. Defore is slightly Miscast for this Type of Thing but does Manage to Pull it Off. The Other Female, Kristine Miller gives a Smooth Performance and is a Good Counterpart to the Bad Girl Scott.Overall, it is the Hard-Boiled Dialog, Liz Scott's Deadly Persona, and the Bleak Story that makes this a Low-Budget Winner.Note...The Film-Noir Foundation and UCLA with the help of others have managed to finally rescue this from the Public Domain DVD abominations and a fine print can be seen on TCM.

Though listed here at IMDb as "Too Late for Tears," the version I saw went by the much better title, "Killer Bait." Whatever you want to call it, this is low-budget film noir at its best. Lizabeth Scott plays one of the most fatale femmes in noir history, a housewife whose desire to keep up with the Joneses turns her into a mercenary murderer. Through the kind of chance accident that so often kicks off the plots of films noir, she and her husband (Arthur Kennedy) become custodians of $60K that was going to be used to pay off a blackmailer. Not surprisingly, the blackmailer comes calling to collect, and he's not surprisingly played by Dan Duryea, who played sardonic unctuousness better than anyone. He thinks he can bully these inexperienced nobodies into giving him the money back, but he has no idea what he's in for with this no longer very demure housewife. Indeed, the film almost makes a joke out of how scared Duryea becomes of her, feeling the need to have a gun on him any time he's going to meet up with her."Killer Bait" is an example of why I love noir. These films were cheap and obscure. They weren't made to be big money makers and there wasn't as much need to make them crowd pleasing. For that reason, they're more honest than the big studio products of the time, cynical about American life in a way that other movies at the time weren't allowed to be. In this film, that pressure to conform to "normal" middle class existence in the post-war years, and the need to define one's success relative to others in materialistic terms, is enough to make one kill. Lizabeth Scott's character is American capitalist society taken to nightmarish extremes.Directed by special effects wizard Byron Haskin, who proves that he's as at home in the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles as he is on the surface of Mars.Grade: A

When a woman in a movie can make a dastardly Dan Duryea character seem like a nice guy, you know you 've got one tough cookie. In "Too Late for Tears," Lizabeth Scott has such a role. She plays Jane Palmer and Duryea plays Danny Fuller. Danny is a shady character who's obviously been on the outs with the law much of his life. Jane is the most ruthless character he's ever come across. Her cold, calculating way of bumping off people even leaves him shaky and suspicious of her. Of course, he has good reason to be. This crime-thriller doesn't quite fit the definition of film noir – it's too well lit and out in the open. But, the dark, sinister and downbeat side otherwise qualify it for that designation. It has some first rate actors – besides Duryea, Arthur Kennedy and Don DeFore in the male lineup, and Kristine Miller on the female side. This was the last film that Hunt Stromberg produced in a 30-year career that had some smash hits. He was a versatile producer, director and writer. Stromberg started in silent films and later made musicals, dramas, mysteries, Westerns, comedies and adventure movies. Among his better known works were the Thin Man series, "The Great Ziegfeld," "The Firefly," "Maytime," "Night Must Fall," "Ah, Wilderness," the 1940 "Pride and Prejudice" with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, and "Wife vs Secretary."According to the IMDb trivia notes, Lizabeth Scott liked this film best of her career. She lived to be 92 but only made a little over 30 films, retiring in her 40s to work in real estate and other ventures. Scott plays a somewhat deranged Jane very well in this film. But, aside from her strange eeriness, she seemed quite wooden in this role. So too, did Kristine Miller in her role. DeFore's character, Don Blake, also seemed a bit wooden at times. The film apparently lacked in direction, editing and other technical aspects. This isn't a mystery movie, but a crime film in which the audience knows "whodunit." Yet there is some suspense about what Jane might do next – or whom she will next bump off. The ending follows a trend of the time for these potboiler type of crime films. The culprit meets her demise by an accidental fall. So, the audience doesn't get to see the bad guy --- gal, in this instance, get her just rewards in the end.