Payment on Demand

In Payment On Demand Bette Davis gets the shock of her life when husband Barry Sullivan asks her for a divorce. They seem to be the perfect couple with two daughters both about to leave the nest. They are a social success in their small town, something that Bette has striven very hard for. Possibly too hard.

If it is true that RKO held up Payment On Demand to see how All About Eve would fair, they needn't have worried. Bette under the direction of Curtis Bernhardt whom she knew and worked with in her days at Warner Brothers gave her just the right direction for a spirited performance. Before All About Eve she had left Warner Brothers under a cloud with the stinker Beyond The Forest fresh in everyone's mind.

It takes her the whole film to realize how much she's alienated her attorney husband Sullivan. They're a great social success, but he's lost friends in the process. Particularly Kent Taylor, a young attorney who Sullivan started out in practice with. You have to see how Davis in her helpful way accomplishes that.

In the supporting cast singled out should be stage great Jane Cowl as Bette's mentor and friend who has gone down a path that she foresees for Davis. Also John Sutton who plays a shipboard lounge lizard that Davis pulls back from. A timely telegram from one of her daughters helps.

Though the order they were made was reversed, Payment On Demand proved to be an excellent followup film to All About Eve. Bette Davis was definitely back on top.

Bette Davis works her usual magic with a colorless role as a wealthy society matron whose miserable husband wants her to give him a divorce. Film's best moments are the flashbacks to the couple's happier times, which are filmed in a dreamy, surreal manner. Jane Cowl gives an outstanding supporting performance as an elderly woman attracted to gigolos, but the centerpiece here is Davis, and she's magnetic as always. Filmed just before "All About Eve"--but released afterward--the picture benefits greatly from the shadowy cinematography, but the pacing plods a bit. Not a bad melodrama, but one that is never mentioned when film-historians revisit Davis' illustrious career. ** from ****

I just saw Payment on Demand for the first time last night. An excellent Bette Davis vehicle! As you all know, this movie was made before All About Eve (though it was released after) and the first movie she made after leaving Warners in 1949. The role and the movie is vintage Bette, a return to form you might say after the three flops she made with Warners in 48 and 49. The quality of the movie is perfectly good. Even though it is not "restored" the picture quality is just fine, especially if you own a Blue Ray player. Curtis B. does a great job directing and the flashback scenes are wonderful. Bette is very good in this role. She looks amazing in the flashback scenes and the Edith Head wardrobe is fabulous. For me, Payment on Demand is the Bette Davis Holy Grail since it has never before been released and almost never shown on TV. It is worth the price of the DVD or download.

More than half a century later, I found this film still moving and still relevant. One can pretend that the world and women's lives have been transformed but even now, this rings true. Women who divorce often do not have an easy time with rebuilding and even though this film made the wife a bit too unsympathetic and the husband too "nice," plenty of forty-something men leave wives who helped them through school and difficult times to go find a younger, fresher edition. I lived it, without all the exaggerations and transparent walls, but with two daughters and a remarried ex-husband. This film spoke to me and I would say that with a bit of truth-telling, there would be a chorus of ayes from those who can do more than imagine feeling the wife's loss and hostility at the husband who betrayed their youth -- perhaps even more than she did by being ambitious. I would like to report that the present is a new world and for some it is, for many, it is not and the great Ms. Davis' eyes tell truth.

"Payment on Demand" begins when David tells Joyce that he wants a divorce. In flashbacks we see how the couple came from humble beginnings and worked their way into affluence. David started from being a lawyer with no clients and worked his way up to being vice president of his best client, a steel company. Joyce was always preoccupied with security, money and status; she is a selfish, manipulative social climber and we can readily see why David wants out. As always, Bette Davis plays the bitch with consummate skill.

What follows shows the old-style divorce process at its worst and chronicles Joyce's life as a single woman. While this part is very well written, it is dated. We learn that an older single woman has no life (other than having to pay younger men to sleep with them) and you're always better off with a man.

While the themes of this film may seem pretty conventional by today's standards, they were anything but in 1951. Divorce was a subject literally ruled off the screen by the very Catholic-oriented Hays Code. Aside from frothy romantic comedies like "The Awful Truth," people just didn't get divorced because they were fed up with their spouses. Nor do films of that Hays era (from 1934 until 1968) ever delve into the actual process of contested divorce (such as the negotiations about property settlements). This film does all that. While the ending may seem disappointing (and was probably a concession to the censors), the rest of the film is excellent and way ahead of its time.