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Live Now, Pay Later

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1962 British film by Jay Lewis
Live Now, Pay Later
British theatrical poster
Directed byJay Lewis
Written byJack Trevor Story
Based onnovel All on the Never-Never by Jack Lindsay
Produced byJack Hanbury
StarringIan Hendry
June Ritchie
John Gregson
CinematographyJack Hildyard
Edited byRoger Cherrill
Music byRon Grainer
Production
company		Woodland
Distributed byRegal Films International (UK)
Release date
  • 25 October 1962 (1962-10-25) (UK)
Running time104 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Live Now, Pay Later is a 1962 British black-and-white comedy-drama film directed by Jay Lewis and starring Ian Hendry, June Ritchie and John Gregson. It was loosely based on the 1961 novel All on the Never-Never by Jack Lindsay. However, the script was solely written by Jack Trevor Story, who subsequently authored the 1963 novel Live Now, Pay Later.

The film focuses on the life of a salesman who habitually seduces his female customers in order to convince them to buy his products. He is secretly embezzling money from the sales, and has a side career as a blackmailer.

Plot

Unsavoury door-to-door salesman Albert Argyle's technique involves bedding his female customers in an attempt to seduce them to buy on credit. As well as being unfaithful to his pregnant girlfriend, the unrepentant Argyle is also cheating his boss out of profits, and trying his hand at a spot of blackmail.

Cast

Production

Filming locations included London, Elstree and Luton.

A version of the opening titles song "Live Now, Pay Later" (Clive Westlake, Ruth Batchelor) was released in 1963 as a single by Doug Sheldon (Decca 45-F 11529).

Release

The only known print was discovered and made available on DVD in June 2020 and has been shown on Talking Pictures TV.

Reception

Variety considered the film to have "many amusing moments, but overall it is untidy and does not develop the personalities of some of the main characters sufficiently. Extraneous situations are dragged in without helping the plot development overmuch."

Monthly Film Bulletin said: "It is the cheerful unpretentiousness of its social criticism which gives the film its rather endearing flavour. ... The unevenness in the acting and the perpetual uncertainty of mood indicates a lack of control in Jay Lewis's direction. Nevertheless his film is constantly entertaining, and it has both a conscience and a heart."

Leslie Halliwell opined: "A satirical farce which lets fly in too many directions at once and has a cumulatively cheerless effect despite some funny moments."

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 5/5 stars, calling the film: "a remarkably cynical and revealing portrait of Britain shifting from postwar austerity into rampant consumerism and the Swinging Sixties. ... Hendry's character is appalling, yet he is also sympathetic since he's the only person who ever does anything in a society built on inertia and the sense of defeat that ony wartime victory can bring. "

In Hollywood, England: British Film Industry in the Sixties Alexander Walker wrote: "The film's cynicism was total, its targets were ruthlessly demolished, and everything had the vigour of a cartoonist's world where the action is carried an instant beyond its naturalistic conclusion."

References

  1. Gifford, Denis (1 April 2016). British Film Catalogue: Two Volume Set - The Fiction Film/The Non-Fiction Film. Routledge. ISBN 9781317740636 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ "Live Now, Pay Later". Variety. 31 December 1961. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
  3. "Live Now, Pay Later". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  4. "Live Now, Pay Later".
  5. "Live Now, Pay Later". Discogs. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
  6. "Live Now, Pay Later". Renown Films. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
  7. "Live Now, Pay Later". Monthly Film Bulletin. 29 (336): 167–168. 1 January 1962.
  8. Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 607. ISBN 0-586-08894-6.
  9. Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 551. ISBN 9780992936440.
  10. Walker, Alexander (1974). Hollywood, England: British Film Industry in the Sixties. Michael Joseph. p. 169. ISBN 9780718108915.

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