AllMovie

Just before filming All About Eve, Bette Davis starred in the marital melodrama Payment on Demand. Davis plays Joyce Ramsey, the wife of David Ramsey (Barry Sullivan), who one fine morning demands a divorce. Most of the film is in flashback, recounting the events leading up to the marital schism. After David takes up with a school teacher (Frances Dee), Joyce heads for a Haitian vacation, hoping to spark a few affairs of her own. But after a chance meeting with an old friend (Jane Cowl) who's become hard and cynical since her own divorce, Davis heads back to the States and attempts to patch up her marriage. Director Curtis Bernhardt was particularly proud of the opening scene in Payment on Demand, wherein Barry Sullivan requests a divorce as calmly as if he were ordering breakfast.