Customer Reviews

Payday

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This film is so great, but it's certainly not for all tastes. I saw it for the first time a few months ago(in a rare screening) and have recently acquired the video and watched it again. Rip Torn is so good as country-western singer Maury Dann. This character is just evil, but evil in the kind of way that one can be fascinated by him. It's a great story in which you spend about a day and half with Maury, his band and his manager. There's lots of enjoyable behind-the-scenes type stuff(some of it is quite disturbing). If your a fan of films that might offend your sensibilities a little and you don't mind characters that aren't necessarily folks you'd want to join up with, you will enjoy this film. I sincerely hope it finds lots of new fans on video-it has all the makings of a cult classic.

This movie never received the praise it merited. Rip Torn is fantastic as a sleezy second-rate C&W singer scrambling toward Nashville and not caring who he uses -- the scene in the car, you'll have to trust me, is exemplary of such lowlife individuals.

And what ever happened to Elayne Heilveil? She was as superlative in this flick as character Maury Dann was despicable.

Incredibly good portrait of a mid-level country music star on a tour of the south. I mean if you're a musician and you've ever been on tour buy this. If nothing else the movie will crack you up. Maury Dann as played by Rip Torn is an irascible, dirty ... The beginning scene with the old time musicians (violinists, banjo players, guitars, etc.) in the hotel room is great in and of itself -- what follows only confirms this great scene. If you're a musician, if you like music, if you like movies, or you're a sociologist fascinated by the country music scene, you should check this movie out.
It's strange because i'm not a expert or nothing but, i think, in 100 years this movie will still be around. It is an expert, unflinching gaze at the degrading aspects of "celebrity."
Regarding the other reviewer's comment, I don't feel that Dann is evil -- the movie is much too realistic to fall into an easy moralistic framework. It almost runs like a documentary. You're here: buy it.

"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

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.

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

It's the little things folks.. What quality actual film-making is.. Believable story for the common folk.. It's the attention to detail.. It's all about the story.. We're only here once.. Might as well be in a cadillac.. No fancy computer generated junk of modern day.. Charactor driven story-lines.. 5 star film-making, like a fine wine. So kick back and enjoy the sights and sounds..

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.

Payday is an interesting film about a mediocre country musician named Maury Dann (Rip Torn). The film follows Dann as he careens across the southeast while on tour. The people around Dann are awestruck by his celebrity and power, so they put up with his awful behavior. As the film progresses, Dann's life increasingly spirals out of control.

The cast of Payday is excellent. The filmmakers did a good job of casting and the actors make the most of their opportunities. For me, the standout was Cliff Emmich as Dann's driver. The filmmakers also capture the sleazy, aimless lives that musicians live on the road. Payday includes some wonderful visuals of the South in the 1970s; the clothes, cars, and furnishings are incredibly gaudy.

The biggest problem with this movie is that Maury Dann is completely unlikeable. He is sexist, violent, crude, self centered, etc. Dann has no particular ambition in life, other to continue taking drugs, having sex with groupies, and making music. The aimless quality of Dann's character tends to drain Payday of suspense because the viewer simply doesn't care about him.

I think that Torn does a good job with Dann, but the script lets him down a bit. Perhaps the screenwriters could have made Dann a bit more interesting if they had developed his background more in order to provide a context for his actions.

In the end I was mildly disappointed in Payday. I'd read the fantastic reviews before watching. While I think that the film is good, Dann's aimless, unlikeable character hurts the film.

When describing his life on the road in the early seventies, Waylon Jennings in his autobiography says the movie Payday shows exactly what it was like. That was enough to convince me to check it out. A really fantastic work.