Jusqu'au bout

Never Let Go, a movie rarely shown in the U.S. (and perhaps elsewhere), is well worth your time, especially if you are a Peter Sellers fan. The plot is reminiscent of The Bicycle Thief, though this movie will not be confused with Italian Neo-Realism. Under John Guillermin's direction, this drama moves from a nervy look at the underworld to a climax comparable to a western's showdown on a deserted dirt street. Richard Todd plays a cosmetics salesman barely doing well enough to make a living, in part due to his milquetoast-type personality. When his car is stolen, his life takes a serious downturn--he cannot work without it. His quest to get his car back drives the plot till the movie's end. Unlike The Bicycle Thief, however, much of the focus scene-by-scene is on the thief, played here by the late, great Peter Sellers.

Sellers's performance is overwhelming, completely over the top. The best comparison I can make is to Dennis Hopper's memorable performance in Lynch's Blue Velvet. As the movie progresses, his manic behavior becomes infectious: there was a palpable sense of the hysteric in the theater where I saw this movie, the audience just waiting to explode with laughter or shock with each move that Sellers made. This can be see as a distraction, and for a moment here or there it is, but by the end, the performance works very well, making the Todd character's growing determination to reclaim his car a point of tension--it will lead to direct confrontation with a maniac. Inexplicably, there is a sugary last scene tacked on to the end of this film, but it is easily forgiven. Ask your local art film house if it can show this movie--if so, it will be a memorable experience.

"Never Let Go" is a British noir from 1960. It was controversial because of the language and violence, which today's viewers won't even notice.

John Cummings (Richard Todd) is a salesman for a cosmetics firm who isn't doing well. He is told he pushes too hard; that he's not like the "new" types of salesmen coming in. Obviously nervous and desperate to keep his job, John has the look and aura of a loser, and his employer knows it.

Hoping to help his work, Cummings buys a Ford Anglia from Lionel Meadows (Peter Sellers), a crook. Cummings doesn't insure the car and when it's stolen, he's in trouble. His sales kit was in it, he now can't get around, and he'll be paying for it for years with nothing to show for it.

Though he's told he needs to let it go, Cummings won't. He launches his own investigation and runs into violence and the seamier side of London.

The outstanding thing about this film is the performance of Peter Sellers as a vicious criminal, violent, vile, with no empathy. He is outstanding. It's said that people who excel in comedy can do drama, but the reverse isn't always true, and Sellers proves the point here. He's amazing and doesn't hold back, giving a full-out performance.

And he flopped. Why? His fans didn't like the change in image, and neither did the critics. He never did drama again. I am reminded of Tyrone Power's excellent performance in Nightmare Alley that so freaked out Darryl Zanuck that he gave it no publicity and withdrew it from release. In that case, though, the critics liked it, and it finally achieved a cult status. But it goes to show how strong images were back in the day and how uncomfortable people were if you tried to do something else.

This is a gritty, depressing movie about a man who needs to get his car back in order to prove to himself and his wife that he's not a loser, and that he refuses to take what fate gives him. The street thugs show him no mercy, the police aren't interested, and his marriage is in jeopardy. Cummings realizes that no matter the price, he must win -- for himself. The finale is fantastic.

Richard Todd does a wonderful job in an emotional role and shows a wide range. He was one of the many British actors who came to fame around the same time: Stewart Granger, Richard Burton, Dirk Bogarde, Laurence Harvey, Terrence Stamp, etc. Whether it was poor choices in films or what, as good an actor as he was, he never reached the full film star potential that seemed unlimited after "The Hasty Heart."

The photography is top quality noir: offbeat angles, with the use of shadows throughout. The music was that typical '50s music one hears in '50s films, loud and jazzy, the type of thing you always here as someone approaches a cheap club in a sleazy part of town.

A good film, tough and no-holds barred in the noir tradition.

Never Let Go is directed by John Guillermin who also co-writes the story with producer Peter de Sarigny. Alun Falconer adapts to screenplay with music by John Barry and cinematography by Christopher Challis. It stars Peter Sellers, Richard Todd, Elizabeth Sellars, Adam Faith and Carol White.

John Cummings (Todd) is a struggling cosmetics salesman who buys a Ford Anglia car from crooked criminal Lionel Meadows (Sellers). When the car is stolen, Cummings, without insurance, finds his job on the line and his marriage facing crisis. Refusing to accept it as just one of those unfortunate things, Cummings starts digging for answers and finds himself in a world of violence, apathy and suicide.

As the classic film noir cycle came to an end, there was still the odd film to filter through post 1958 that deserved to have been better regarded in noir circles. One such film is Britain's biting thriller, Never Let Go. Its history is interesting. Landed with the X Certificate in Britain, a certificate normally afforded blood drenched horror or pornography, the picture garnered some notoriety on account of its brutal violence and frank language. By today's standards it's obviously tame, but transporting oneself back to 1960 it's easy to see why the picture caused a stir. The other notable thing to come with the film's package was the appearance of Peter Sellers in a very rare serious role. In short he plays a vile angry bastard, and plays it brilliantly so, but the critics kicked him for it, and his army of fans were dismayed to see the great comic actor playing fearsome drama. So stung was he by the criticism and fall out, Sellers refused to do serious drama again. And that, on this evidence, is a tragic shame.

What about my car? Out of Beaconsfield Studios, Guillermin's movie is a clinically bleak movie in tone and thematics. Todd's amiable John Cummings is plunged into a downward spiral of violence and helplessness by one turn of fate, that of his car being stolen. As he is buffeted about by young thugs, given the run around by a seemingly unsympathetic police force, starts to lose a grip on his job and dressed down by his adoring wife, Cummings begins to man up and realise he may have to become as bad as his nemesis, Lionel Meadows, to get what he rightly feels is justice. But at what cost to himself and others? The classic noir motif of the doppleganger comes into play for the excellently staged finale, made more telling by the build up where Cummings' "growth" plays opposite Meadows' rod of iron approach as he bullies man, woman and reptiles. Visually, too, it's classic film noir where Challis (Footsteps in the Fog) and Guillermin (Town on Trial) use shadows and darkness to reflect state of minds, while the grand use of off kilter camera angles are used for doors of plot revelation. Layered over the top is a jazzy score by John Barry.

It's not perfect, Sellers' accent takes some getting used to here in London town, Adam Faith is not wholly convincing as a bully boy carjacker and there's a leap of faith needed to accept some parts of the police investigation. But this is still quality drama, it's nasty, seedy and expertly characterised by the principal actors. In this dingy corner of 1960 London, film noir was very much alive and well. 9/10

Of course, it's Peter Sellers' name which has attracted attention to this little-known film, made at a time when he was trying out some serious acting work in addition to his renowned comedy talent. It must be said that he does pull off a remarkable performance. As the gangster, Meadows, he does a lot more than put on a tough voice and bash a few heads in. He perfectly portrays an outward smoothie, concerned for appearances, a man who doesn't like getting his hands dirty - but underneath is a barely-repressed streak of sadism verging on psychopathic tendencies. There is a remarkably daring scene (for the time) which distinctly adds a sexual dimension to his dominant personality. As he tells Carol White to take her top off, the sound of his breathing and the look in his eyes verge on the shocking, and the fact that it is Peter Sellers performing this, adds to the shock value.

However, Sellers does not upstage the film from Richard Todd who is also cast considerably against type. In films of this period Todd always played the handsome debonair hero, but in a complete reversal Todd here plays what the Americans refer to as a "milquetoast". But again, multidimensionality in the character is beautifully brought out, as Cummings starts to show the obsessive side of his personality. The expository scene in which his wife tells him, as gently as she can, that he has always been a failure, and that getting the car back would not, as he claims, solve all their problems, is beautifully handled by Todd and Elizabeth Sellars as his long-suffering wife.

This film, an X-Certificate upon release (equivalent to 18 or NC-17 certificates today) doesn't shirk from showing the execution and effects of violence. One scene, in which Todd gets badly beaten up by David Lodge (of all people), must have represented a very early usage of amplifying the sound of a fist hitting a torso for the purposes of magnifying the horror. This scene remains effective over forty years later. As a result of this, the film acquires a beautiful sense of unpredictability. There's clearly going to be a showdown between Cummings and Meadows, but the film very effectively adds to the suspense by a long sequence in which Cummings in a cafe and Meadows in his penthouse flat are both shown waiting for it - without any clue tipped to the audience as to what finally will happen. John Barry's score is very effective, if a trifle old fashioned, in heightening the tension - Barry's trademark chord progressions are still a way off in the future.

De Sarigny and Guillermin put together a brilliant script, two wonderfully talented actors and superlative direction to create a great British noir movie which should be more widely known.

Incidentally, for young Harry Potter fans who think the car in "The Chamber of Secrets" was made up, here is the proof that the Ford Anglia really did exist, all the way back to 1959 (although sadly it doesn't fly) - here an example of one is the cause of all the trouble.

Nasty and brutish it may be but this British crime movie is also extremely gripping and very well done for what it is. Richard Todd is the salesman who goes after the thieves who stole his car. Adam Faith is the young thug who actually took it and, cast against type, Peter Sellers is superb as the psychotic Mr Big figure. A 17 year old Carol White, (she of "Cathy Come Home" fame), is Sellers' young mistress. The director was John Guillermin and he gives the film a nice sleazy atmosphere and makes very good use of his London locations.