Synopsis
Something always happened to her men...
A man listens to his wife and fakes his own death so that she can get her hands on his insurance policy.
Shed No Tears
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Releases by Date
Theatrical
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USA
Releases by Country
USA
09 Jun 1948
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
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Spoilers ahead.
Shed No Tears is a drab-looking, no-budget noir that just happens to feature a higher percentage of amoral characters than most any other movie you can think of, as well as a chilly, unapologetic femme fatale who goes to her death still trying to get hers.
The film opens with Sam Grover (Wallace Ford) faking his own death in a hotel fire, then being dropped off by his sexy, much younger wife Edna (June Vincent) to head out of town and hide, until it's safe to be together again. The whole thing is part of an insurance scam, whereby Grover hopes to hold onto his money-hungry wife by securing her his $50,000 life insurance policy, one they'll share…
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Shed no tears indeed, at least not for any of the characters in this movie, because they're all pretty slimy, although Wallace Ford's character was sympathetic, but only because you felt sorry for him because he was such a dupe in the first place. He should've known better. Anyway the plot in this is great, kind of overly elaborate at times, but still great. Even though it's kind of a bargain basement production, they still do it justice because it kind of stays interesting all the way to the end. June Vincent as the femme fatale is right up there with the best of them.
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A little dry in the production department, but the twists make this death case a intriguing one. June Vincent functions as the soul of the story, but Johnstone White sleazy nature was what made it fun.
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Edna Grover (June Vincent) is a bad, bad lady. She convinces her husband Sam (Wallace Ford) to commit a potent combination of arson, grave robbing, and life insurance fraud in order to fake his own death. Sam runs off to Washington DC to lie low for a while. This suits Edna just fine, since she can now spend more sexytime with hunky boyfriend Ray (Mark Roberts).
The cops are satisfied that it was an accident; the insurance people want to do a little more investigating. Meanwhile, Sam's straight-arrow son Tom (Dick Hogan) comes around, and enlists the help of eccentric and loquacious (and unethical) PI Huntington Stewart (Johnstone White) to get to the bottom of things.
Perhaps you've heard that…
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As clearly no-budget as this immediately exposes itself as, I didn't expect to get a lot out of it. But for whatever faults I could pick at with some of the acting or pedestrian cinematography, the film makes up for it with a script full of amoral characters, twists and turns. I couldn't help but enjoy the hell out of it, despite its shortcomings.
Not to mention it has an amazing title for a noir of this era.
On the surface, it's a really simple story, and one that we've seen plenty of times before, especially within this genre. An insurance scam that turns murderous, when I found that this was available on Prime I figured it would be the…
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So much double crossing it gave me a migraine, unfortunately the head spinning shenanigans are severely hamstrung by plodding direction and acting so wooden you'll be picking splinters out of your eyes. Bolton's Wallace Ford manages to escape with his acting chops intact as does Johnstone White as the conniving PI Huntington Stewart, but the booby award goes to Dick Hogan, as the hapless holier than thou and super whiny Tom Grover, you're still a loser Tom. Dick would shortly retire from thesping to become an insurance agent. Wise move Dixon. At only 60 minutes or so it's diverting enough to seek out (YouTube), a grim and pitiless B-Noir. Watch out for the wicked cabby gag at the end.
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A wife convinces her husband to fake his death so they can collect on the life insurance.
Above-average noir drama with an especially ruthless femme fatale; lively and entertaining for what its is. -
"You make men think things, doncha?" A mini-Noir with some great zingy lines, but also some truly awful direction and camerawork, and stilted, stagey acting by June Vincent and others (one doofus keeps looking at what must be off-camera cue cards). Badly needs restoration, and deserves it even though it's only a B (or really C) movie. Even clunkers like this should be preserved for posterity, I guess.
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I’ll miss you a plenty, but remember, don’t “do anything that’s crazy and don’t, “Shed No Tears”! These were the instructions that Edna Grover (June Vincent) gave to his wife Sam Grover (Wallace Ford)! For a $50,000 in insurance money, Sam faked his own death. After the policy was settled, they were to met up again. Edna were to identify the body with Sam’s jewelry. But things don’t siesta work out the way it should. Edna was two-timing Sam with another younger love, Ray Belden (Mark Roberts). Sam follows him home and kills the young lover.
Sam older son, Tom (Dock Hogan) doesn’t believe the tall tale and hires a private detective, Huntington Stewart (Johnston White). Tom thinks that Edna…
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Tough to rate. They all try real hard, but the budget limitations show. A pretty great story even if the script could use polish.