The Damned Don't Cry is a 1950 American film noir crime-drama directed by Vincent Sherman and featuring Joan Crawford, David Brian, and Steve Cochran.

[2] Ethel Whitehead, a married woman living in a squalid factory town with an abusive husband and unsupportive parents, is only attached to her young son.

Ethel meets the store's mild-mannered accountant, Martin Blackford, who accepts her invitation to dine out with her at the club where she usually entertains out-of-town clients.

After learning that Martin's financial situation is hardly better than her own, she engineers a meeting between the club's boss, Grady, who badly needs a competent accountant.

The honest Martin initially balks at the idea of aiding a criminal enterprise, but Ethel encourages him to likewise abandon his morals, arguing that money and power are the only things that matters in life, and that all people must look after themselves.

She chafes under her responsibility after a meeting with Martin informs her that a vindictive Castleman intends to murder Nick if his suspicions about a rebellion are true.

He wrote "Miss Crawford as the 'fancy lady' runs through the whole routine of cheap motion-picture dramatics in her latter-day hard-boiled, dead-pan style...A more artificial lot of acting could hardly be achieved" He added "And Kent Smith, as a public accountant whom Miss Crawford lures into the syndicate, plays a Milquetoast so completely that his whole performance seems a succession of timid gulps.

Steve Cochran as a tricky West Coast mobster and Selena Royle as a vagrant socialite do their jobs in a conventional B-story, A-budget way.

It is efficiently directed by Vincent Sherman...Joan Crawford gives a solid performance as the gangster's moll who discovers when it's too late that she took the wrong path.

"[8] Slant critic Jeremiah Kipp wrote "The direction by hack Vincent Sherman is adequate and humble before Joan, though some scenes feel like the transition into the editing room was hardly smooth.