Live Now - Pay Later

Ian Hendry is a tallyman. That's the fellow who sells you something on credit, with nothing down and just a little to pay each week. He's very good at his job, charming and energetic, with all the tricks at what is nowadays called upselling, with a sideline in seduction. The problem is that things are beginning to fall apart for him. June Ritchie, the girlfriend, whom he moved out on months ago, has just given birth to their daughter, and he knows he wants her and them, but he can't turn off the sales pitch.

Ian Hendry gives a great performance as the profligate salesman, who finds that you can buy anything you want, but if you don't make the payments, they can repossess, well, everything: the goods, your happiness, your life, even your immortal soul. What starts out as a comedy seamlessly turns into tragedy without Hendry noticing, and a savage satire of materialism and the credit philosophy. More than half a century later, it still stings.

LIVE NOW - PAY LATER is an interesting little slice of social milieu and one of those British social dramas that acts like a snapshot of its era, very similar to the kitchen sink or angry young man genres that were topping the box office at the time. This one's about the changing financial face of the country post-WW2 and the growth of credit and what it could do to people. Anyone who's a fan of the bailiff documentaries that are popular on TV in the 21st century will find much of interest here, while others will just enjoy the wealth of acting talent including Ian Hendry in his glory days and the likes of Gregson, Fraser and even Peter Butterworth as solid support.

Albert is a cheerful, unscrupulous "tally-man", a door-to-door salesman who cons housewives into buying things they don't need on the instalment plan. He's happy - until he begins to fall in love.

Albert's falling in love is never convincing, and so it proved. This is a rather tawdry tale of a man who cons himself, and everybody else, through life.

He talks the unsuspecting into living on credit, "only pay a shilling in the pound ... each week".

Living on tick, hire-purchase, the never-never was a forerunner to the credit card society we live in today, except the bailiffs would be round to repossess your items of desire if you couldn't keep up the payments.

Albert has at least three women on the go, and three families he barely owns up to. He is a nasty character, although I think he was meant to be seen as a loveable rogue.

There is a top notch cast of familiar faces, many who went on to do better things than this.

Ian Hendry never quite got the recognition he deserved and he's very good in this film, as is everyone else in it. His character takes full advantage of the consumer boom of the times when people wanted the latest gadgets but did not have the cash to pay the full amount required. Of great historical interest on top of being a film that's very well worth watching. I did spot Peter Bowles in a smallish part. There was probably a few real "tally men" like Hendry's character back in the day, there was of course agents from "The Provvy" who collected insurance premiums on a weekly basis on doorsteps. They are still around, The Provident that is not the collectors.

One evening many years ago i went into the long vanished Prince Albert pub in Golders Green Road.There swaying unsteadily was Ian Hendry looking very much the worse for wear and obviously drunk,offering to serve me.His career by that time was on the way down the drain to a great extent because of this drinking habit.Such a shame as he clearly had a lot of talent as shown by this film.What his career might have amounted to if he had been given some of the parts he was turned down for is now just conjecture.This is a very enjoyable film with lots of sparkling performances from familiar faces.With regard to the topless bath scene i wonder whether the version circulating was the continental version.Film directors would usually shoot 2 versions of such scenes.One more chaste for the British censor to approve,without any nudity,and one for the continent where it could all hang out !