"Payment Deferred" drips with melodrama and moral rectitude, but it's still worth seeing. Charles Laughton plays the part of William Marble, a wretched bank clerk whose debts drive him to a desperate act. Laughton reprises the role he first played on stage, which may be the reason for his overly broad portrayal and his lack of subtlety. Still, Laughton is always fun to watch.
Ray Milland--so young you might not recognize him--plays Marble's long lost relative who comes to visit. Maureen O'Sullivan plays Winnie Marble, the self-centered daughter who craves money so she can look down on those who have always looked down on her.
It's a simple story that rarely ventures from the confines of the Marble household, but it demonstrates what passed for a crime story in 1932. Later, despite the Hayes code, Hitchcock and others would produce crime stories with more psychological subtlety and those that live in the gray areas of moral uncertainty.
