On P List of Movie Reviews
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Payday (1973)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
10/24
10/24:
Shot on location in Selma, Alabama, Payday may have a slow start, but it gets better over time.
A lot of it reminds me of Five Easy Pieces, and Rip Torn, who's famous as Artie
from The Larry Sanders Show, is certainly the poor man's Jack Nicholson. Simply put, it's a brilliant film
of character study. Everybody is deeply sketched, and I was surprised to see how good the show had become in a redneck way.
What's not recognized until the end is that Payday is Southern Gothic. Although charming and likeable,
Maury Dann is a self-centered, psychotic country and western singer who must have everybody do the work for him
and also take the fall if things go bad, hence the handler for a manager. Of course, his personal life is a mess as
evidenced by his loony mother and broken marriage with kids whom he never sees. He picks up women and uses them for
sex; when they've run out of use, he moves on without a feeling. By the way, the killing wasn't his fault
as it happened in the name of self defense.
When Maury Dann died at the end which led to his car spinning out of control, I thought he had a heart attack,
probably from the drugs he was abusing for so long. If that didn't happen, I wouldn't have thought of the aforementioned
genre. Anyway, the performances are impeccable, and it may be Rip Torn's finest hour in cinema and he did his
own singing. Elayne Heilveil, Cliff Emmich, Ahna Capri, and Michael C. Gwynne deserve credit, too.
All in all, Payday is a hidden gem that belongs in any list of best Southern Gothic films.