Too Late for Tears

Byron Haskin's Too Late for Tears (1949) is a lesser-known film noir that has come to DVD is a highly degraded edition from Alpha Video, utilizing a somewhat dark source print whose main virtue is a decent audio track mastered at a healthy volume and a certain consistency throughout, albeit at a low level. Much of the detail is a bit fuzzy, while some of the daylight shots seem to be a little too bright, as though the producers pumped a little too much light into the print -- Dan Duryea's shirt in his first scene is practically whited out of the shot. Additionally, there are some missing frames at a key moment at 34:41, and also at a little over 52 minutes in, and at 56 minutes in. Generally, the image on this disc matches that of the better public-domain videotapes of the mid-'80s, making this disc a kind of peculiar nostalgic experience. There is an absence of details in those same shots, which is frustrating but tolerable, given that the movie never turns up in any particularly better version. The six chapters usual to Alpha's releases are woefully inadequate for the complex plot, involving spousal betrayal, blackmail, assault, and at least two murders. The disc opens automatically to the three-position single-layer menu, which has the "play" option in the default position.