Toby Locke secretly works as a loan shark to support his mentally unstable wife, Judith. He is soon heavily in debt to the city's mobsters. Fearing for his life, Toby kills one of the crooks and tries to escape town with Judith. The delicate girl is horrified by her husband's secret life, and attempts suicide. Recovering in a convalescent home, Judith falls in love with her doctor, Craig Mitchell. This newfound peace is endangered when Toby arrives looking for her, with the mobsters he owes money to hot on his tail...
A taut crime drama, I Demand Payment was completed in early July 1936, but for reasons lost to the mists of time did not garner a release until December 1938. Leading man Jack La Rue, often mistaken for Humphrey Bogart, was an iconic "tough guy" actor who appeared in scores of detective and gangster pictures. Despite this, one of his most memorable roles was when he was cast against type as a priest in A Farewell to Arms (1932). Lloyd Hughes started his career in prestigious silents like The Sea Hawk (1924) and The Lost World (1925), but by the talkie era had become a fixture in "B" pictures with titles such as The Drums of Jeopardy (1931) and Midnight Phantom (1935). Guinn "Big Boy" Williams was a former rodeo star who became a popular Western actor during the silent era. After the advent of sound, he moved into a solid career as a supporting player, appearing in classics such as Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and The Desperadoes (1943).