***

At the behest of his sexy-siren of a wife Edna, Sam Grover fakes his own death in order to defraud the insurance company out of a fortune. Under an assumed name, Sam takes refuge in a distant town and Edna promises to join him, once she collects the money. Sam's son Tom Grover, believes that his dad was murdered and hires shady private eye Huntington Stewart to investigate. Certain that Edna has collected the money, and tired of waiting to hear from his "widow," Sam sneaks home only to discover Edna making love to another man. The sexually-charged tinderbox explodes in blackmail, double-cross and murder!

Product Description:
In this crime drama, a loving husband listens to his wife and fakes his own death so that she can get her hands on his insurance policy. The whole situation rouses the suspicions of the man's son (by a different marriage) who ends up hiring an investigator to look into it. Unfortunately the PI is crooked and the wife pays him to stay silent. In the end the husband discovers that his wife has been using the money on her secret lover...
 

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Alpha

Region 0 - NTSC

1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 5.24 mb/s
NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen - 1.33:1

Edition Details:
• Bonus trailers for titles from Alpha New Cinema
• Alpha Video DVD Catalog

DVD Release Date: March 13th, 2012
Keep Case

Chapters 7

Sometimes a film falls through the cracks and Shed No Tears was a noir that was impossible to see until this DVD release from Alpha. The film has been unavailable on home video in any form. It is not some lost masterpiece, but still an engaging B-thriller starring June Vincent of Black Angel fame. Unlike her good-girl heroine in Black Angel, in Shed No Tears she is in true femme fatale mode as Edna. Having a lover on the side, she and her much older husband conjure up a plan to fake her husband's death and collect insurance money. The husband thinks Edna will join him after the money is collected, but she has other plans. Her husband's son shows up in the picture thinking his father has been murdered by his younger wife. He hires a private eye who starts to manipulate the characters of this crime story like a puppeteer. There are some surprises along the way making Shed No Tears a worthy entry in low-budget crime cannon.

Finally having the film available is a plus, but unfortunately, film is released by Alpha mostly known for their poor public domain releases taken from beat-up 16-mm sources. Shed No Tears, likewise, is presented from a 16-mm source. The interlaced image has damage and the contrast is poor, but the film is watchable - something that can't always be said about many Alpha's releases. Film starts with an Alpha Video watermark in the top right corner, but it's only during the credits (see the title capture above). The mono English sound has many pops and clicks, but likewise shouldn't be a fatal deterrent. Considering in 40+ years of home video, this is the first time this film is available on home video, a better version is unlikely to surface.

  - Gregory Meshman

CLICK to order from:

Alpha

Region 0 - NTSC