Payday (1973)

Rip Torn stars as Maury Dann, a real scoundrel of a singer, in the cult favorite Payday (1973). Rip is struggling to keep his rep as a top name in Nashville, putting on the aw-shucks country-boy act onstage while living a raucous mess of a life when the lights come up. Mean-spirited and manipulative, this pugnacious pill popper lives for booze, cooze, and screwing over anyone he can. In a mere thirty-six hours, Rip fast talks a whole host of people, tries to get his driver to take a murder rap, cans his mistress (Ahna Capri), nabs groupie Elayne Heilveil, tries to bribe a DJ, fires his best buddy from his band, and just generally acts like a monstro psycho with a far-too-huge ego. Overlooked in its time, Payday nevertheless won Rip raves that continue to this day—and also scored awards from the National Association of Film Critics and the Writers Guild of America.