Description: His life is on the road, his career is on the skids?but maybe a country singer's next song can take him out of the honky tonks and onto the radio hit parade. Rip Torn scores in this chronicle of show business backstage. Year: 1972Director: Daryl DukeStarring: Rip Torn
Amazon.com: He'll be nigh on unrecognizable to fans of The Larry Sanders Show and Men in Black (not to mention his dozens of other roles), but the actor who gives a, well, rip-roaring performance in Payday is the very same Rip Torn. Directed by Daryl Duke, this 1973 film was one of Torn's few outings as a leading man, and he has a field day as Maury Dann, a mid-level country singer traveling the Deep South honky tonk circuit. We only spend about a day and a half in this unsavory character's company, but that's plenty. Indeed, in those 36 action-packed hours, Dann plays a gig (Torn does his own singing--he's no George Jones, but that's entirely appropriate for the part), goes quail-hunting, drops in to a radio station for an interview, visits his estranged wife and drug-addled mother, pops handfuls of pills and smokes plenty of reefer, and beds no less than three women, one of them in the backseat of his Cadillac while another sleeps right beside them. He is basically a hard living lout, a guy whose sense of entitlement far exceeds his actual stature, and it comes as little surprise when his lies, cynicism, and general abuse of everyone in his orbit catch up to him in the end. Payday effectively immerses the viewer in a world of card-playing good ol' boys, easy women, and cheap motel rooms with cheesy wood paneling. But it's more a series of vignettes than a real story, and while there are some amusing characterizations by the other actors (Cliff Emmich shines as Maury's faithful driver, while Elayne Heilveil is effective as a clueless female conquest), this is Torn's show from beginning to end. For many, that will be enough. The principal bonus feature is a commentary track with director Duke and Saul Zaentz, whose company produced the film. --Sam Graham
Second Rate Country Singer-First Rate Heel "Maury Dann, the second-rate country singer and first-rate heel played by Rip Torn." Ken Tucker
Payday is a film that left me feeling forlorn, a feeling of emptiness and what's next. Rip Torn played his character, Maury Dann, true to form. A country singer on his way down from never near the top. He cheats, wheedles, lies and moves on so easily without remorse, using whomever he needs to, I wonder what is the purpose of his life. It seems he has little regard for those who travel with him or might love him. His purpose is to make money to pay for the booze, women and song that make up his life. The surrounding players had little or no effect on me, but, of course, they made the film a whole. I can see in my mind's eye that this course of life goes on daily with hundreds of people moving through the country or rock scene. How sad a life, how very very sad.
"As a portrait of the music industry of that era -- Maury bribes DJs to play records and makes sure to get paid in cash after yowling tunes in tattered roadhouses -- the low-budget Payday is far superior to Robert Altman's overrated, condescending 1975 drama Nashville. Payday both loves its subject and never lets its antihero off the hook." Ken Tucker
Recommended. Best advice, view this film on a bright sunny day. prisrob 02-14-08
Where the Rivers Flow North
Heartland
Ballad of A Bad Man The obvious comparison to "Payday" would be Robert Altman's "Nashville" but I think director Daryl Duke outdoes Altman here. The setting of the film is the periphery of the Country-Western scene where the gate is measured in the hundreds and the film's anti-hero, Maury Dann(Rip Torn), gets paid in cash. Dann plies his trade warbling cynical ditties to the cowboy hats and beehives hoping for that opening at the Opry or some misfortune to occur for a slot on "The Johnny Cash Show". Nothing is beneath this rascal. Squiring young girls in the back of his Caddie while nondiscretely tossing to the side of the road old groupies. Payola. Mistreatment of his sidemen. Probably the lowest he can go is killing a man in cold blood and tossing it off on one of his flunkies because "the show must go on". What makes Dann palatable is his devil-may-care attitude and his irresistible grin that is the most enticing this side of Jack. Ironically, Torn was originally cast in the Jack Nicholson role in "Easy Rider" but had to pull out. In the Seventies, the studios tackled interesting stories and character pieces and "Payday" is no exception. Duke later made another underappreciated classic in 1979, "The Silent Partner" with Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer. It would behoove true cineastes to check both of these films out.
a true classic I had given up on ever seeing this on disc. It is one of the all-time great cult films - a nearly perfect depiction of a true psychopath. Torn pretty well conveys the psychopathic worldview in one line, "we only pass this way once, darlin', might as well pass in a Cadillac". It is a marvelous portrayal of a chronic, debauched user on the way downhill. Rip Torn is a great actor, and I think this is his masterpiece. Widescreen films, BTW, don't need to be "matted" because they are already widescreen, so I would guess that this is another blind application of a matte to a FS film to pass it off as widescreen. I hope they don't do as bad a job as they did with Cable Hogue.
A forgotten character study film from the 1970's Payday (1972) is one of five films being released as part of Warner Home Video's "Directors' Showcase: Take Three" collection. However, these films are being sold individually, not as part of some boxed set. For those of you who are familiar with Rip Torn as irrascible 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 likeable 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.
DVD Special Features: Commentary by Director Daryl Duke & Producer Saul Zaentz Widescreen "Matted" format Subtitles: English and French
Finest hour??? Like watching a train wreck in sloooow motion. If this was Rip Torn's finest hour, I'd hate to see his nadir.
Reviewed by Kathie Freeman, author of "Catwalk", a feline adventure story.
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