Never Let Go (1963)

Why so much hype?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

How come I've never seen this gut busting, ball grabbing, bum clenchingly great film before ?!? A clear precursor to French Connection and Dirty Harry and a lost British classic.

Never Let Go is about the auto wrecking/salvage business, I guess called auto "breakers"/salvage in the UK, but an illegal aspect of it. When a late model car is wrecked it's title is saved and the car's engine number, chassis number, and body serial plates are transferred to a stolen car which is then resold under the wrecked cars title. Lionel Meadows (Sellers) is the kingpin of an auto theft ring. Titles are collected from wrecks by MacKinnon (Bailey), make, model, and year are put on a list. This list is given to Lionel who then gives the list to his boys who then steal the exact matches. These cars are then driven to Reagan's (Stock) auto body shop where the serial numbers are changed and the cars repainted to match the wrecked titles. The altered cars are then driven to Meadows Garage and sold.John Cummings (Todd) is a milquetoast barely making ends meet as a London cosmetics salesman. One night he stops at Berger for a few hours to do some paperwork before heading home. While inside his car is pinched by Tommy Towers (Faith) who drives it to Reagan's (Stock) auto shop, where it will be altered.John is devastated, he didn't get it insured for theft, just third party risk. John's wife wants him to forget about trying to get the car back. She's becoming distressed about his actions, actions which she, in a backhanded way, ignited. She told John that he was always chasing pipe dreams that he never caught and made reality. That sets John off, determined to "never let go" until he gets his Anglica back.John's obsession and alienation from his wife increases steadily throughout the remainder of the film. This change is convincingly well acted by Todd who goes from soggy milquetoast to hard crust burnt toast. Peter Sellers though is practically unrecognizable. His Meadows character looks like his pudgy evil twin. He's frighteningly different, very twisted from the comedic Sellers we are used to. He sports a push-broom mustache. He is petty, vicious, vile, and has the facade of an outwardly polite charmer. Meadows pseudo smiles, only with his mouth not his eyes. He's a fastidious over the top neat freak, complaining about Jackie's untidiness, placing coasters under drink glasses and ranting about lit cigarettes left on veneer. He also has a sexual sadistic kink with his mistress Jackie. He's a pressure cooker slowly building as things in his little world go awry. He has startlingly violent outbursts. Like a safety valve he's letting off steam, but it's not helping, you know there will be the inevitable explosion as he rages on about the "little nob, lipstick salesman" , and how he's going to "kill him. put him in his car, and burn it!"Never Let Go builds nicely to an inevitable showdown punctuated by John Barry's score. It's what a noir should be, about interesting small time characters and simple conflicts that spiral bizarrely of control. Bravo 9/10

This is a nice little picture, kind of a commentary on crime, which features Richard Todd as a perfume salesman who doesn't take kindly to having his new Impalia stolen by a gang lead by Peter Sellers. Although there may be elements of dark comedy, this is basically a straightforward crime drama and all the principals are very effective, particularly Sellers.You could basically see this film as a modern urban variation on "High Noon." The police and the man's wife eventually decide that going after Sellers is far too dangerous, but as the title implies this man will just not let go of his precious car. He goes so far as to bring danger down upon his own household, when Sellers tracks him there and pushes his wife around. Finally he has to have a man-to-man showdown with the villainous Sellers, and the men beat each other nearly to death.I've never really seen Sellers quite as evil as he was in this film. He pushes women around, he robs from innocent people with no remorse, and he brutally punishes his underlings when they disappoint him. He attacks the role with great relish, like a man who enjoys doing bad things. This was Sellers' least mannered performance to date, among the films I have seen. In contrast to some of his later films where his excellent performances stand out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the film, this one serves the story and the film before all else.It's an interesting comment on materialism in our society, although I don't know if it plays out today exactly as it was intended. I found myself becoming quite aggravated with the good guy and wishing that Sellers could get away with it, because I was almost as infuriated with him as the bad guy. There's also a juvenile delinquent couple that just seems thrown in to give the story "modern relevance." But all in all this is a very memorable movie and I'm surprised that it's not discussed more often.

In a sea of monotonous black and white 50's - 60's films it was great to see a master of roles playing an classic villain - Sellers. Peter Sellers role in this film was quite superb as said above a classic villain for this master of character acting to sink his teeth into. Adam Faith and Richard Todd turn in an uneventful performance - in fact Todd's role was very wooden. In support of the masterly Sellers was David Lodge and Nigel Stock who in their turn have supported the best over the years and in my opinion both gave small but convincing performances as Seller's side kicks.An excellent film to see if only to watch the performance by Peter Sellers