Zeus

I Demand Payment (1938)

• Director
  • Clifford Sanforth
• Writers
  • Rob Eden(story "Second Choice")
  • Sherman L. Lowe(screenplay)
• Stars
  • Betty Burgess
  • Jack La Rue
  • Matty Kemp

  Jack LaRue goes through his usual unsavory paces in the not-bad cheapie I Demand Payment. The film is one of several late-1930s exposes of the loan-shark racket, with LaRue playing head shark Smiles Badollo (five points for that name alone!) Among the victims of Badollo's usury are heroine Judith Avery (Betty Burgess) and doctor Craig Mitchell (Lloyd Hughes). When Judith's sister Rita (Sheila Terry) is murdered by the villains, it's the beginning of the end for Badollo and company. Cast as Jack LaRue's cowardly second-in-command is Matty Kemp, who later ruffled more than a few Hollywood feathers as Mary Pickford's no-nonsense business manager.