Die Ehrgeizige

In Payment On Demand Bette Davis gets the shock of her life when husband Barry Sullivan asks her for a divorce. They seem to be the perfect couple with two daughters both about to leave the nest. They are a social success in their small town, something that Bette has striven very hard for. Possibly too hard.

If it is true that RKO held up Payment On Demand to see how All About Eve would fair, they needn't have worried. Bette under the direction of Curtis Bernhardt whom she knew and worked with in her days at Warner Brothers gave her just the right direction for a spirited performance. Before All About Eve she had left Warner Brothers under a cloud with the stinker Beyond The Forest fresh in everyone's mind.

It takes her the whole film to realize how much she's alienated her attorney husband Sullivan. They're a great social success, but he's lost friends in the process. Particularly Kent Taylor, a young attorney who Sullivan started out in practice with. You have to see how Davis in her helpful way accomplishes that.

In the supporting cast singled out should be stage great Jane Cowl as Bette's mentor and friend who has gone down a path that she foresees for Davis. Also John Sutton who plays a shipboard lounge lizard that Davis pulls back from. A timely telegram from one of her daughters helps.

Though the order they were made was reversed, Payment On Demand proved to be an excellent followup film to All About Eve. Bette Davis was definitely back on top.

Some well-known names in here... Bette Davis was in just EVERYTHING in the 1930s and 1940s. (You MUST see All About Eve, if you haven't already). Natalie Schafer was "Lovey" in Gilligan's Island. Richard Anderson will go on to be Oscar on the Six Million Dollar Man. The storyline is a bit maudlin and depressing ( and rather ordinary, by today's standards.) Back in the day, divorce was uncommon, and much more of a town scandal... which we see when even the newspaper calls the wife to get the sordid details. The jilted wife, being a Bette Davis character, tells him right off. SO many flashbacks. it's all a bit depressing, but was probably more fascinating and interesting back in the day. the irony of the husband's success as he climbs up the ladder, while the marriage slowly comes apart. Barry Sullivan is the husband.

Directed by Curis Bernhardt... had started in the silents in Germany. worked his way to hollywood and directed some good films. This wasn't his best. it's very okay. nothing too new or exciting.

"Payment on Demand" is a good film. It's well made and interesting throughout. However, it has two minor flaws--you really don't care that much about the two main characters and the ending seemed a bit difficult to believe. Still, the acting is nice and the film is worth seeing.

The film begins with a husband (Barry Sullivan) announcing that he wants a divorce. The wife (Bette Davis) at first is in denial, as she insists to herself and others that he'll be back. Here is where it gets interesting. So far, you really dislike the husband as he seems pretty selfish. However, as the wife sits at home contemplating her life, she has flashbacks and through these interestingly constructed vignettes*, you see that she herself has contributed to the coldness in the marriage through her insistence that he become successful at any cost. Through this, you see that the marriage falling apart is both their faults and the film ends on a very strange note--that you'll just have to see to appreciate.

*These vignettes were unusual because they looked like a filmed version of a play. The sets would light up and when they were complete, the lights would dim--just like in a play. And, it worked very well.

More than half a century later, I found this film still moving and still relevant. One can pretend that the world and women's lives have been transformed but even now, this rings true. Women who divorce often do not have an easy time with rebuilding and even though this film made the wife a bit too unsympathetic and the husband too "nice," plenty of forty-something men leave wives who helped them through school and difficult times to go find a younger, fresher edition. I lived it, without all the exaggerations and transparent walls, but with two daughters and a remarried ex-husband. This film spoke to me and I would say that with a bit of truth-telling, there would be a chorus of ayes from those who can do more than imagine feeling the wife's loss and hostility at the husband who betrayed their youth -- perhaps even more than she did by being ambitious. I would like to report that the present is a new world and for some it is, for many, it is not and the great Ms. Davis' eyes tell truth.

Bette Davis works her usual magic with a colorless role as a wealthy society matron whose miserable husband wants her to give him a divorce. Film's best moments are the flashbacks to the couple's happier times, which are filmed in a dreamy, surreal manner. Jane Cowl gives an outstanding supporting performance as an elderly woman attracted to gigolos, but the centerpiece here is Davis, and she's magnetic as always. Filmed just before "All About Eve"--but released afterward--the picture benefits greatly from the shadowy cinematography, but the pacing plods a bit. Not a bad melodrama, but one that is never mentioned when film-historians revisit Davis' illustrious career. ** from ****