Never Back Losers (1961)

Crooked dealings on the racetrack provide the background to Never Back Losers, a 1961 entry in the Merton Park Studios cycle of ultra-cheap British Edgar Wallace potboilers.

Jim Matthews (Jack Hedley) is a lowly clerk working for an insurance company. The work is mind-numbingly boring but there is hope. He has applied for a transfer to the Claims department which would mean much more interesting work and getting out from a desk. Much to his surprise his transfer is approved. He finds that working in Claims is perhaps more exciting than he’d bargained for. His first case may prove to be his last.

It’s a pretty routine case. A jockey named Wally Sanders was badly injured in a car crash and won’t be able to ride again. Wally had demonstrated admirable foresight in taking out an insurance policy which covered him for such eventualities. The insurance company is however not entirely happy about the claim, partly because Sanders had been involved in an incident on the racetrack which suggested he might have deliberately caused his horse, the odds on favourite, to lose. There is no proof but the stewards were just a little doubtful about his explanation. Investigating the claim will be the first assignment for Jim Matthews in his new position.

He throws himself into the case with energy and enthusiasm, although perhaps not with terribly good judgment. He discovers a few things that suggest that Wally Sanders was definitely mixed up in something crooked. In fact Jim discovers enough to earn himself a beating by a couple of hoodlums who warn him to stop nosing around. Jim is an easy-going affable sort of chap but he’s very stubborn and he’s determined to keep digging.

It seems highly likely that Ben Black (Patrick Magee) is involved in some way. Black runs a number of legitimate businesses and others that are not so legitimate.

There’s also (naturally) a pretty young woman mixed up in the affair, which may be a partial explanation for Jim’s keen interest in the case. Marion Parker (Jacqueline Ellis) is the sister of jockey Clive Parker (Larry Martyn) and he’s been hanging around with a rather unsavoury crowd lately.

This is a very low-key crime thriller. There’s only one scene at the beginning and some brief moments at the end set at an actual racetrack (and the racing footage is presumably just stock footage) which is rather disappointing but not surprising given the very low budgets these features were made on. The slightly seedy world of losers living on the borderline between legitimate employment and petty crime is evoked reasonably well. The movie is shot in a very straightforward and competent if uninspired manner. There’s not a lot of visual interest in this movie. Director Robert Tronson went on to a successful career in television.

For a film presumably based on an Edgar Wallace story the plot is decidedly lacking in fiendish plot twists. Lukas Heller’s screenplay doesn’t exactly dazzle us with its originality.

Jack Hedley makes an amiable and sympathetic hero. He doesn’t have the mind of a brilliant detective and he’s sorely lacking in experience but he has one thing going for him - he just doesn’t realise that he’s out of his depth and that he should just walk away. He’s like a big friendly dog who’s picked up a scent and he just can’t let it go.

Jacqueline Ellis is no more than competent as an actress but she’s attractive and she manages well enough in an undemanding role.

The movie’s one big asset is Patrick Magee. It’s the kind of outlandishly excessive and outrageously hammy performance that Magee specialised in and it provides some of the vitality and fun that is otherwise in short supply in this picture. Magee is simply wonderful.

Never Back Losers is one of seven films making up Network’s Region 2 Edgar Wallace Mysteries: Volume 2 DVD set. The anamorphic transfer is extremely good. 

Never Back Losers is not a great movie. It’s not even a good movie. It is at best a harmless distraction. Jack Hedley’s good-natured charm and Patrick Magee’s bravura performance almost make it worthwhile. This is definitely one of the weaker movies in an otherwise very fine boxed set and if you’re going to buy the set then watching this movie will only be 61 minutes out of your life. For all its weaknesses I couldn’t bring myself to actively dislike this movie.