Shed No Tears *** (1948, Wallace Ford, June Vincent, Mark Roberts, Frank Albertson) – Classic Movie Review 11,435

SOMETHING ALWAYS HAPPENED TO HER MEN… blackmail… double-cross… even MURDER!… 

Director Jean Yarbrough’s brilliantly twisty, clever 1948 American film noir crime thriller Shed No Tears stars Wallace Ford, June Vincent, Mark Roberts, and Frank Albertson. The low-grade production, with its murky shooting, is not in its favour, but the script, with its excellent, labyrinthine plot, definitely is.

It is produced by Frost Film Productions and was released by Eagle-Lion Films on 9 July 1948 in the US.

Wallace Ford stars as used car salesman Sam Grover, who plots to collect $50,000 on his life insurance policy, hurling a flaming unidentifiable corpse from the window of his burning hotel room. Grover then disguises himself and hides out in Washington DC to await his wife Edna (June Vincent), who devised the scheme. But she’s been two timing with wastrel Ray Belden (Mark Roberts) and she plans to have her husband bumped off and run off with her man and the money. However, Grover’s son by his first marriage, Tom (Dick Hogan), hires a private detective, Huntington Stewart (Johnstone White).

Shed No Tears is written by Brown Holmes and Virginia M Cooke, based on the novel Shed No Tears by Don Martin.

It runs 70 minutes, is shot by Frank Redman, is produced by Robert Frost and scored by Raoul Kraushaar.

The cast include Wallace Ford as Sam Grover, June Vincent as Edna Grover, Mark Roberts as young wastrel Ray Belden, Frank Albertson as Police Lieutenant Hutton, Richard Hogan as Sam’s son Tom Grover, Johnstone White as private detective Huntington Stewart, Elena Verdugo as Marilyn, and Betty Blythe as the landlady Mrs Peet.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,435

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