Payday

This is another one of those brilliant character studies that proliferated film screens in the early 1970's. Rip Torn gives a superb performance as Maury Dann, a mercurial, drunken country/western singer whose life ultimately careens out-of-control during a road tour. Payday is probably the most accurate filmed depiction of a musician's life on the road that you'll ever see: endless drug abuse, random sex, sudden violence. It's all here in one well-written, astutely directed package. Sadly, Payday is seldom seen in revival houses or on television. This is a true gem worth finding.

I remember watching this film late night in college on the movie channel Encore some 15 years ago. It is a great flick that captures what life on the road for a country western singer must have been like. As others have noted, it could serve as a biography for Johnny Cash and many others of that era who lived a life of pills, booze, and one-night stands with a little music sprinkled in between. Rip Torn is great in this movie, though it's hard now not to picture him as Arthur from the Larry Sanders Show. The one line from Torn's character that sticks with me even today is: "You only go through this life once. You might as well do it in a Cadillac." I'd love to see this movie again but I imagine it would be a hard find.

Occasionally, in the Art of Movie Making, all things come Together with a Synchronistic Symmetry and the Result is a Near-Perfect Picture that seems as Well Crafted as it Possibly could be.

This happens, No Matter the Budget, Production Capabilities, or the Artisans Applying Their Craft. This is one of those Movies.

A Gritty, Early Seventies Character Study of a Merle Haggard Style Country Music Singer. A Mid-Level Star that Humps the Highways Playing Honky Tonks and the Sort, and with His Charming Crusty Ways, takes Advantage of Anyone on His Path to one more Payday.

It's that Payday, along with Pills and Alcohol, that Fuels the Folks in the Band and the Entourage that is Small enough to fit into a Cadillac and one more Trailing Vehicle.

Rip Torn Simply Embodies the Type and becomes completely Lost in the Role. He's "In the Skin" of this Self-Centered Warbler as He Encounters Groupies, Payola DJ's, and some Irate and Hostile Folks who Don't Care much for His Lecherous Ways.

The Movie is Mesmerizing with its Neo-Realism and Not One Scene seems Forced or Faked. The Dialog Crackles with Down Home Cynicism and Playful, Uneducated Insight, Fractured by a Hard Reality Colliding with the Hard Living.

A Compelling, Watchable, Car-Wreck of Real People Realizing the World Around Them and What They Want isn't always What They Got Coming. A Must See, Little Known, B-Movie that hasn't lost a bit of its Edge. Primitive Movie Making at its Best.

I saw this on the big screen at AFI in Washinton D.C. and was blown away. From what I've ready about life on the road in the seventies, this movie recreates the itinerate life of outlaw musicians like Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, etc, perfectly; Rip Torn is a revelation for those who don't know his work from the 70's when he was thin and charismatic.

I can't think of any film that quite captures the feeling of what it must have been like to be running around on amphetamines and barbiturates in the 70's (which had their peak usage then), from show to show, on a medium size tour circuit complete with one night stands, hanger-ons, fistfights, and various charlatans. The drugs are specific to this period as Qualudes, and various uppers and downers, were being produced legally (albeit with a prescription. This makes for a certain kind of life you could never lead now as the drugs just aren't available like they were then. (Johnny Cash gotten busted I believe in the 70's for smuggling a whole bunch of pills from Mexico). Farewell to a bygone era. If you couldn't be there, this may be your best education.

For those of you who are familiar with Rip Torn as irascible and authoritarian yet lovable characters such as Artie in "The Larry Sanders Show" and Zed in "Men in Black" be prepared for a shock. In this film there is nothing likable about Torn's character Maury Dann, a country singer currently on tour through the south. There is no wisdom behind his cynicism - he is all about using people. Specifically he is all about indulging in all the sex and substance abuse he can without regard to what it does to others. His life takes a turn to an even darker place when the boyfriend of one of his one-night stands catches up with him in a restaurant one day. This is one of those character study films that were very popular in the 1970's, and Torn does a great job playing a totally ruthless individual who has a totally different on-stage persona from his actual personality. He even does a fine job singing the country and western songs. Payday was directed by 1974 National Society of Film Critics Award winner Daryl Duke.

It's a hidden gem worth seeking out.