Wordiezett So much average

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Michael_Elliott Payment Deferred (1932)*** (out of 4) A bank clerk (Charles Laughton) decides to kill his rich nephew (Ray Milland) so that he can steal his wallet and pay off his families debt, which is about to put them in the poor house. After the murder Laughton sends his wife (Dorothy Peterson) and daughter (Maureen O'Sullivan) on a trip and enters an affair. This is a rather interesting film, which has certainly been forgotten over the years but it's tale of a father murdering due to becoming poor might work just as good today as it did in 1932. The film is based on a famous play and for the most part the film plays out like you'd see it on stage but this is also a weakness as there's way too much talk going on. The screenplay seems to bounce back and forth from a serious drama to a crime film and even at times coming off like a black comedy. Laughton turns in a very good performance, although he does take it a bit over the top at times. You'll notice this whenever he begins to freak out that someone is going to find the body that he's buried in his back yard. This part of his performance might lend itself to the black comedy aspect. Milland doesn't have much of a role as he gets killed off rather early on but he's playing that jerk of a bad guy that we'd see him play throughout his career. O'Sullivan has a pretty thankless role but it's nice seeing her anyways.

jpickerel Make no mistake, this one belongs to Charles Laughton. Bringing this role from the stage, his movements and facial expressions are over exaggerated and hammy by later standards. But he was a monumental talent.The movie is a taut, well constructed murder mystery, with Laughton as a man who almost gets away with murder and an illicit affair. Almost. His wife (Dorothy Peterson, no mean actress in her own right) discovers both, and extracts her revenge in a marvelously twisted plot device, which almost, but not quite, pushes the boundaries of believability.Veree Teasdale as the paramour who turns to blackmail is fine.An early appearance by Ray Milland (billed as Raymond Milland) is credible, as the rich Australian nephew, who shows up at the wrong time (for him).Have a watch.

sol ***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Crime & Punishment movie having to do with how justice works in strange and unusual ways in bringing the guilty to pay for their crimes. In this case William Mable, Charles Laughton, a man who got away with murder but was convicted and sent to the gallows for a murder, or really death, that he in fact didn't commit.Deep in debt and with no way out of his pressing financial problems William has his nephew from far off Australia James Medland, Ray Milland, show up at his dilapidated house, that he's behind in the rent, for a visit. Seeing that James has a wad of bills, in the hundreds of pounds, in his wallet William tries to talk him into going partners with him in the superlative British Foreign Exchange Currency Market. The overbearing William really gets under the good natured James skin who tells him to kindly get lost and stop bothering him with his both wild and cockamamie money schemes.Desperately wanting to get his hands on James cash William, in an effort to let bygones be bygones, offers him a departing drink that he secretly lased with deadly cyanide. Gulping the drink down in one shot James soon becomes history as well as part, in being buried there, of the Mable's backyard.Keeping both his wife Anne, Dorothy Peterson,and daughter Winnie, Maureen O'Sullivan, as well as the the police in the dark to James' fate it soon becomes evident that William in fact got away with murder. William got a bit lucky in the Foreign Exchange Market parlaying James stolen 100 pounds to an astonishing 30,000 in less then a month! With everything going great for him William falls victim to his next door neighbor clothing store owner Maggie Collins, Verree Teasdale, who's been eying the big oaf when she got wind that he was riding the gravy train as a result of the money he made in the market.Taking advantage of a lonely William, with his both wife and daughter away on vacation, Maggie seduced the big lug and later used the fact that he cheated on his wife Anne to blackmail him. Anne, suspecting something, who only thought that William embezzled the bank that he work at got the shock of her life when she caught William and Maggie smooching in the family living room! This while she was both sick and bedridden with pneumonia upstairs in the master bedroom!***SPOILERS*** Greatly depressed in the fact that her loyal and caring husband is cheating on her Anne took a drink of juice laced with cyanide and ended up dead the same way James, involuntarily, did. Arrested in is wife's murder William could only wait and face the music, or hangman, in a murder that he didn't commit but one that he did and got away with. In fact the strange fate of William Marble turned out to be a twisted case of poetic justice if there ever was one!

bkoganbing At a time when so very few stage actors got to recreate their parts for the screen we are fortunate that MGM acquired Payment Deferred and Irving Thalberg wanted Charles Laughton enough to borrow him from Paramount and Adolph Zukor who had brought him to Hollywood on the strength of his performance in Payment Deferred. The play is adaption by Jeffrey Dell based on a novel by C.S. Forrester who is better known for such historical novels as the Horatio Hornblower series.The play originated in Great Britain and Laughton created the role of the father on the stage with Elsa Lanchester playing his daughter. He also did it in 1931 for 70 performances also co-starring with his wife Elsa Lanchester. In 1931 during the Depression that was a respectable run on Broadway. Laughton plays a bank clerk who's up against it in those Depression years with his family, wife Dorothy Peterson and daughter Maureen O'Sullivan facing imminent eviction. Along comes nephew Ray Milland, newly arrived from Australia, with a ton of money. He tries to interest Milland in a sure investment thing he's heard about from the bank, but can't capitalize on. When Milland refuses he poisons him when they're alone and buries him in the backyard, after taking whatever money he needs.The investment pays off, but Laughton is not a criminal at heart and he's a rather weak willed individual who drifts into an affair with new neighbor Verree Teasdale again when wife and daughter are away. That leads to blackmail and another murder and all for the wrong reasons.Mystery fans will no doubt catch the similarities between Payment Deferred and the James M. Cain classic, The Postman Always Rings Twice. It works out the same way in the film, so if you've seen the famous movie of that novel that starred John Garfield and Lana Turner you know how Payment Deferred will come out.In adapting the play MGM did not do a terribly good job of disguising the stage origins. It is in fact a one set play, the living room of the Laughton/Peterson house. However Laughton is riveting in his part and the rest of the cast supports him ably.When next broadcast don't miss Payment Deferred, for the legion of fans that Charles Laughton has, it's a must.