Never Back Losers

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Never Back Losers
"Never Back Losers" (1961).jpg
Directed by Robert Tronson
Written by Lukas Heller
Based onnovel The Green Ribbon by Edgar Wallace
Produced byJack Greenwood
Starring Jack Hedley
Jacqueline Ellis
Patrick Magee
CinematographyBert Mason
Edited byDerek Holding
Music byBernard Ebbinghouse
Ron Goodwin (composer: additional music - uncredited)
Production
company
Distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors (UK)
Release date
  • 1961 (1961)
Running time
61 mins
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Never Back Losers is a 1961 British 'B' [1] crime film directed by Robert Tronson and starring Jack Hedley, Jacqueline Ellis and Patrick Magee. [2] The film is based on the 1929 novel The Green Ribbon by Edgar Wallace. [3] It was one of the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series, produced at Merton Park Studios in the early 1960s. [4]

Contents

Plot

Horse racing jockey Wally Sanders loses a race, crashes his car, and a claim is made on his insurance. Jim Matthews, a shrewd insurance investigator, follows up the company's suspicion of foul play and finds himself deep in a web of gambling and corruption surrounding the racetrack.

Cast

Critical reception

Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The first of the Edgar Wallace series to employ one of his crime-and-Turf formats, this unpretentious little film makes good use of Jack Hedley’s engagingly diffident personality. Racing scenes occur only at the start and close of the story, which is otherwise unfolded with quiet slickness within betting circles and night-clubs." [5]

Kine Weekly said "The picture revolves around the racecourse, but is a 'who-dunnit’ rather than a romance of the Turf. Jack Hedley has quite a way with him as Jim, Jacqueline Ellis is a pert Marion, and Patrick Magee and Harry Locke keep one guessing as Lucky Ben and Burnside. The supporting types, too, ring true. Night clubs scenes relieve the tension, the horse races exhilarate and what few loose strings there are are firmly tied at the finish." [6]

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References

  1. ↑ Chibnall, Steve; McFarlane, Brian (2009). The British 'B' Film. London: BFI/Bloomsbury. p. 237. ISBN   978-1-8445-7319-6.
  2. ↑ "Never Back Losers". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  3. ↑ Goble, Alan (8 September 2011). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN   978-3-11-095194-3.
  4. ↑ "BFI Screenonline: Never Back Losers (1961)". www.screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  5. ↑ "Never Back Losers". Monthly Film Bulletin . 29 (336): 12. 1962. ProQuest   1305823546 – via ProQuest.
  6. ↑ "Never Back Losers". Kine Weekly . 535 (2827): 25. 7 December 1961. ProQuest   2859070831 – via ProQuest.
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