Thu 21 Jan 2021
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: NEVER LET GO (1960).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[4] Comments
NEVER LET GO. Rank Film Distributors Ltd., UK, 1960. Richard Todd, Peter Sellers, Elizabeth Sellars, Adam Faith, Carol White, Mervyn Johns. Co-screenwriter/director: John Guillermin. Currently available on YouTube here.
You’d hardly believe it was Peter Sellers. Well, that’s not quite true. It’s just that one doesn’t necessarily think of Sellers when one thinks of a cinematic villain. Indeed, Sellers almost never played completely straight roles, let alone villainous ones. That, above all else, is what makes Never Let Go worth watching. For here one gets to see how much of a range Sellers had and how incredibly captivating a performance he was capable of when presented with the opportunity.
Directed by John Guillerman, this late British noir exudes a somewhat sleazy, definitively downmarket atmosphere boosted by a jazzy John Barry score. This is not posh London, but the London of juvenile delinquents and the lower middle class struggling to get by. Among them is perfume salesman John Cummings (Richard Todd), a perpetual dreamer who thinks success is just over the horizon. When his recently purchased 1959 Ford Anglia is stolen, he sets out on a frenzied quest – think Moby Dick – to get his beloved car back.
This puts him at odds with both the police and the leader of a vehicular theft ring by the name of Lionel Meadows (Peter Sellers). Meadows is a brute of a man. Cruel and vindictive, he isn’t above hitting women, killing animals (note: there is a particularly disturbing scene where a real fish is left flopping on the ground), and forcing a lonely, elderly man into taking his own life.
As much as Meadows is cruel, Cummings is determined. He will get his car back, even if it costs him his marriage or his life. This obsessive desire can be best understood as reflective of the perilous economic status of England’s middle class. It’s not so much the car that he wants, as it is what the car represents; namely, the post-war dream for societal and economic advancement in a rigidly stratified society.
Even though Cummings is the titular hero in his psychodrama, it is Meadows who is the most memorable character. Richard Todd simply can’t compete with Peter Sellers in holding the audience’s attention. It’s a downright chilling performance from a legendary actor most associated with his comedic roles.
January 21st, 2021 at 4:48 pm
For Dan Stumpf’s review of this same film, posted earlier on this blog, go here:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=67831
January 21st, 2021 at 7:53 pm
It’s an interesting film thanks largely to Sellars performance, but also because Todd’s hero is a true Noir hero, a flawed man whose motives are questionable, who keeps prodding the bear, in this case Sellars, to the point his life is on the line.
I really think Todd is important to this film. He was always at his best playing an ordinary man caught in extraordinary circumstances, ironic in that in his heroic roles he was an actual hero playing one but better at playing a normal individual.
This one, for anyone who never saw it, is stunning just for Sellar’s remarkable vicious criminal.
January 21st, 2021 at 9:17 pm
I took the photos I included in Jon’s review directly from the screen while watching part of the YouTube video.
But even before doing so, I have seen enough of Sellers’ performances over the years to know there’s always a dark side to them, even in some of his funniest roles. That’s why I wasn’t surprised to see him in playing a villain so very very effectively in this one.
January 22nd, 2021 at 6:28 pm
I’m sure I’m not alone in attesting that I grew up enjoying Peter Sellers –and never finding any limit to the man’s creativity. What a dynamo.
I haven’t seen this particular film but I well believe the strength of it, reinforced by the glimmerings above.
Besides this tempting crime-gaza, Sellers’ dark side is found too in ‘Strangelove’ and ‘Lolita’, naturally …but also in many comedies (‘The Party’, ‘The Purple Matador’) and even the Pink Panther series where he seems to excel in the most mortifying situations and the most abject, trod-upon, groveling characters.
This past year or so, I’ve also been listening to his influential hurly-burly, ‘Goon Show’ where he teams with Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. Off the cliff.
I’m always glad to hear insights about Sellers. Such men (he, Milligan, the Pythons) increasingly strike me as savants.
One anecdote I relish: in the ’60s London in-crowd nightlife circuit, Sellers often made a whole room roar with his uncanny skill at impersonations. He could pinpoint and mock the speech or habits of dozens of famous figures of the day. Only one star stumped him: Guinness. He still ‘got’ him, but onlookers had to be ‘told’.