Callendar:
There's 200,000 consumers in this town, and they're all waiting for
you... just you. Albert:
Yeah, to con 'em into buying a whole load of stuff they don't need and
can't afford. Callendar:
There's a nasty little streak of honesty in you, Albert. You wanna watch
that... it's bad for business. |
Britain
at the beginning of the 1960s was still getting over rationing, which
had lingered after the deprivations of World War Two into the mid-50s.
Financially in hock to the USA as a result of the war, Britain was
also under the spell of Hollywood and the modern American
lifestyle. If Pop Art was one manifestation of (and/or comment on) this, the new arrival of
"hire purchase" (an early form of buying on credit, with
"easy weekly payments") also made everyday modern luxuries
affordable for the ordinary British home... or so even Britain's less
well-off families were led to believe. |
Britain's
class-ridden culture
now had a new national myth of optimism, modernity and upward mobility
to live up to, in the wake of 1951's Festival Of Britain. The new
Welfare State and expanded educational opportunities "for all"
were contributing too. The modern lifestyle as it should be lived could
be seen on the Hollywood screen, and in a post-war flood of American and
American-influenced magazines and paperback books. But the consumer
durables which would furnish the lifestyle were beyond the reach of most
until the coming of hire purchase. |
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Now every
household could have the washing machine, the latest TV set, the 3-piece
suite... but the charming salesman who sold you the stuff would be back
every week to pick up the payments. He was the "tally boy" and
Jack Trevor Story brilliantly evoked the times by putting Albert Argyle,
ace tally boy, at the centre of his tale. Ian Hendry brings Albert
memorably to life on the screen; he's seen here with his son by the
happily married Grace. |
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Albert
is more than willing to meet the sexual needs of the housewives he
visits on his rounds as well their desire for material goods. At the
core of the story, though, is his stormy relationship with Treasure
(June Ritchie) the single girl faced with bringing up their baby with
little help from Albert. Albert's superficially happy-go-lucky attitude
to life can't conceal his underlying anxieties, and in his repeated rows
with Treasure he reveals his insecurity. |
The
film, like the book, is concerned with the downside of Britain's new
gold dream, and of Albert's own self-delusions. Not entirely without
conscience, the prince of the tally boys has his moments of doubt about
his job, consciously felt, and perhaps about his personal ethics, though
these worries he would find it harder to express. Likewise the story
shows the unbearable strain on housewife Joyce Corby, in particular, as
she struggles to meet her hire purchase payments and support the social
aspirations of her husband, a rising local politician. |
Albert
sees the pressures he and his trade are exerting on their customers, and
what happens to Joyce after the bailiffs are called in to repossess her
furniture brings it home to him. But he can't escape his own nature - or
his own debts - and he doesn't turn into a heroic figure. Neither does
the film demand that we judge him as a villain; he's an ordinary bloke,
better than some, a reflection of his times. The story is populated by
well-observed characters, none more so than Albert himself. |
Albert's
adventures, and those of the rest of the cast, were to continue in print
in the two sequels Something For Nothing (adventures in the
trading stamps business) and The Urban District Lover which
brought the local politics aspects of the story to the fore. Something
For Nothing was originally planned as a film sequel, but the sudden
death of producer Mario Zampi stopped it. |
John
Braine's Room At The Top, John Osborne's Look Back In Anger,
Alan Sillitoe's Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, Keith
Waterhouse's Billy Liar, Nell Dunn's Up The Junction and Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim
are probably more widely remembered as the literary and filmic documents of
the times. Many of us know that Jack Trevor Story's Live Now,
Pay Later deserves a place on that list. Whether it will
survive as even a footnote, only time will tell. |
Origins of LNPL: The Jack Lindsay connection >
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on to Live Now, Pay Later
picture gallery 1 -->> |
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