Payday (1972)
-
74% of users liked it
(252 ratings)
A musician finds his life and his career jumping off the rails in this moody, intelligent drama. Maury Dann (Rip Torn) is a singer and songwriter struggling to hold onto his footing as one of the top names in country & western music. This being 1972, long before the Nashville sound had gone… More A musician finds his life and his career jumping off the rails in this moody, intelligent drama. Maury Dann (Rip Torn) is a singer and songwriter struggling to hold onto his footing as one of the top names in country & western music. This being 1972, long before the Nashville sound had gone "mainstream," Dann has a new Cadillac and a small entourage to show for his efforts, but most of his shows are one-nighters at beer-soaked honky tonks in the Deep South. Onstage Maury Dann comes off as a soft-hearted good ol' boy, but off the stand, Dann is a mean-spirited hell raiser with a nearly unquenchable appetite for booze, pills, and women. Over the course of a seemingly typical day and a half, Dann steals a fan's girlfriend; ditches his longtime mistress, Mayleen (Anna Capri); picks up a naïve groupie named Rosamond (Elayne Heilveil) and gives her a crash course in life on the road; fires his guitar player (and best friend) and hires a starry-eyed teenager as his replacement; tries to bribe a disc jockey with booze and free records; has a harrowing run-in with his speed-addicted mother (Cara Dunn); discovers he's missed his son's birthday by four months; and, in cahoots with his manager, Clarence (Michael C. Gwynne), fast-talks his loyal driver, cook, and gofer, Chicago (Cliff Emmich), into taking a possible murder rap. While Payday earned excellent reviews (particularly for Rip Torn's superb performance as Maury Dann) and a handful of awards (Daryl Duke's direction won him a citation from the National Association of Film Critics, while Don Carpenter's screenplay received a prize from the Writer's Guild of America) the film's downbeat themes made it a tough sell. However, Payday gained a cult following, and more than one "outlaw" country star of the 1970s has been said to claim the film was based on his own true story. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Directed By
- Daryl Duke
- Written By
- Don Carpenter
- Genres
- Drama, Classics
- In Theaters
- Feb 22, 1973 Wide
Critic Reviews
-
John J. Puccio, Movie Metropolis
The movie is a fascinating character study, but it's a long, dark, unhappy trip to the end.
-
John J. Puccio, Movie Metropolis
...the kind of film that's easy to admire but really hard to like.
-
Daniel Eagan, Film Journal International
Outstanding study of self-destructive country singer
-
Jonathan R. Perry, Tyler Morning Telegraph (Texas)
Rip Torn gives one of the great unsung film performances in a somber -- but never solemn -- portrait of self-destruction.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
Featured Audience Ratings
Currently unavailable on Flixster
Also available on
Other Retailers
Subscription Services
Cast
-
Henry O. Arnold
as Ted
-
Walter Bamberg
as Bridgeway
-
Clara Dunn
as Mama Dann
-
Cliff Emmich
as Chauffeur
-
Eleanor Fell
as Galen Dann
-
Michael C. Gwynne
as Clarence
-
Elayne Heilveil
as Rosamond
-
Bill Littleton
as Process Server
-
Winton McNair
as Highway Policeman
-
Jeff Morris
as Tally
-
Sonny Shroyer
as Dabney
-
Bobby Smith
as Lyman Pitt
-
Linda Spatz
as Sandy
-
Earle Trigg
as Disk Jockey
-
Rip Torn
as Maury Dann
-
Richard Hoffman
as Foggy Bottom Yonce
-
Ahna Capri
as Mayleen
-
Ed Neeley
as Abe
-
Michael Edwards
as Restaurant Manager