MOVIE OF THE DAY: "PAYMENT DEFERRED" (1932)

For a teller at a foreign exchange bank, William Marble is pretty inept with money. Not only is he in debt to every store in the neighborhood, his boss has given him 72 hours to repay the dough he lifted from an important client. 

But fortune comes smiling to the Marble home when William's adult nephew James pops by for a visit, flashing a mighty tempting bankroll. When James refuses his host's offer to invest it for him in exchange for a 10% commission, William does the next best thing: he slips some cyanide into James's drink, takes his money, and buries him in the back yard. What's family for anyway? 

Biggest issue I have: Maureen O'Sullivan
is supposed to be Charles Laughton's daughter?

Some contemporary viewers might have an issue with what seems like a major plot problem. Payment Deferred' hinges entirely on Marble's wife and daughter not putting a very obvious two and two together. 

Like, wondering why Wiliam's clothes are covered with mud the morning after James leaves. Or why there's a new grave-sized mound of dirt in the yard. Or where he got the money to invest. Or -- and this should really set off alarms -- why he takes a sudden interest in books about murder by poison.

Haven't you known guys like this?

It's because the great Chares Laughton plays William Marble so convincingly as a mousy bank clerk that there's no way anybody would believe him capable of jaywalking, let alone murder. Even when he's barking at his wife and daughter over household finances, it doesn't seem like anything other than a cover for his self-contempt. 

Mme. Collins makes un idiote out of Marble.

And yet that same self-awareness fails him at a pivotal moment. Knowing that the now-rich Marble has sent Annie and Winnie on a three-week holiday, French neighbor Mme. Collins drops by. The middle-aged temptress quickly seduces him into giving her money to keep her business afloat. Making herself at home, Collins continues their affair  -- and money demands -- until Annie and Winnie return.

If my daughter ever looks at me this way, it'll
be time to pack it in...

Marble's triple-life of investor/murderer/ adulterer starts falling apart. Winnie, now hanging out with a more sophisticated group of friends, looks upon her crude father with condescension. And in an interesting bit of bad news/good news, Annie finally figures out what he's done with his nephew... but appears to accept it! She sure takes that "for better or for worse" stuff seriously.

On the other hand, if my wife is OK with murder
when it means more money, she's definitely
a keeper!

You can't go wrong with any Charles Laughton performance, and Payment Deferred is as good as any. Just 33 years old -- only 11 years older than Maureen O'Sullivan, who plays his daughter -- he plays the dumpy, middle-aged William Marble with a complexity that makes you feel sorry for the schmo. OK, murderer. 

In two words: uh oh.

Twenty-five year-old Ray Milland has the brief yet pivotal role as the doomed nephew
who falls victim to his uncle's nefarious ways. (Laughton has an extraordinary moment where you see him get the murderous idea just by the look in his eyes.) If you're wondering why Marble has a bottle of cyanide hanging around the house, it's one of the chemicals he uses to develop pictures. Just one more reason digital photography isn't as good as film.

Since he's the star of a pre-code movie, Laughton gets away with murder. Well, technically. The title is Payment Deferred, after all. And as the bill unexpectedly comes due, you'll marvel at the brilliance of an actor who, nearly a century later, can still make you feel a dozen different emotions over 80 minutes. 

For my wife, though, here and in another pre-code drama The Devil and the Deep, all she could feel from Laughton was an unbearable creepiness. He would likely have taken that as a compliment.

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To read about Devil and the Deep, go here.