PlatinumRead
Just so...so bad
Siflutter
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
Beulah Bram
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
mark.waltz
Not bad for what it is, this B crime thriller with lots of moments of comedy is fast and furious and includes the right amount of ingredients to make it satisfactory B movie fare. It all concerns a cut up diamond stolen and prepared to be sold and the chase to find the culprits. Diminutive Darro (at 5'3" one of the smallest leading men outside of Alan Ladd and Mickey Rooney) poses as a prize fighter in order to infiltrate the den of thieves and works along side special agent Kane Richmond. He also has to deal with the constant cloying attentions of perky teen June Gale whose schtick gets a little tired after a while. There's plenty of action though and a nice car chase finale, but most of the film I had pretty much forgotten about outside Darro's temperament, Gale's clinging onto him and a few of the more powerful action scenes. As directed by Leslie Goodwin (equal to William Beaudine and Samuel Katzman as a fast moving quota quickie director), this isn't something I'd push onto film classic aficionados other than to take a look at the career of the extremely likable Darro, a Bowery Boy type without all the bad malapropisms and certainly an actor of some note who has a cult following but isn't as well remembered as he should be.
Tom Willett (yonhope)
Frankie Darro seems to be doing all of his own stunts here. He actually is in prime shape and he looks good. He has fun while he engages in fist fights with the diamond thieves. The car chase is fun. Everyone is pretty well cast as a good guy or bad guy or good girl or nosy girl. Frankie made quite a few movies and some were very good. I always thought he was a good actor and very good with the action scenes. He did not do lots of love scenes but there was usually a girl chasing him in the films. This movie is a good look at Americans in the Depression era. Always well dressed, even if they were hoods planning a caper. Rooming and boarding houses were common in the 1930s and 1940s in the US. We see a typical house that has a room and board sign in this movie. This is a great escape from texting and talking to a GPS device. Men's and ladies' hats and wardrobe and hair are all interesting. Frankie definitely had great hair.
wes-connors
After getting involved in a punching match, small town San Juan messenger boy Frankie Darro (as Lee Harris) is recruited by jewel thieves as a potential featherweight champ. Of course, it's a front for the criminally minded. While training for a championship bout that will never happen, Mr. Darro meets handsome and heroic mystery man Kane Richmond (as Jerry Carter). Claiming he's researching a book, Mr. Richmond acts more like a detective...Hoping to avoid "The Devil Diamond" curse, superstitious jewelers have employed the father of rooming house hostess June Gale (as Dorothy Lanning) to cut some diamonds. She and Richmond have a mutual romantic interest. Jogging, jumping, and working out on the parallel bars in his cozy sweat pants, Darro arouses attention from boy-crazy Rosita Butler (as Yvonne Wallace). She likes looking at Darro's "pretty muscles," but has trouble getting a kiss...***** The Devil Diamond (1/15/37) Leslie Goodwins ~ Frankie Darro, Kane Richmond, June Gale, Rosita Butler
Spuzzlightyear
Devil's Diamond is one heck of a curio of a movie, that leaves everything dangling and nothing resolved. After a "cursed" diamond is shipped off by a jewelry company to get cut by a master cutter, a cunning employee of the company gathers a bunch of bad guys together to snap up the diamonds once they're cut. Bur wait a sec, how are they going to act natural at the hostel where the cutter is? Thanks to a sharp-fisted delivery boy, they create a front that they're training the kid to box, and that will keep everyone fooled! When they get there, there's another suspicious chap who is also looking at the diamond. Is it another bad guy? We're led to BELIEVE that, but of course it isn't, because after all, we need a hero for the story! So yes, it DOES turn out (DUH!) he's only keeping an eye out on the diamond, and starts getting suspicious about the gang hanging out. The boxer-in-training gets suspicious too, not when he's tiredly fighting off some girly amour that keeps pawing him. The end I won't spoil for you, but this left me with my shoulders shrugging, as it really didn't achieve anything. Didn't leave me rooting for the main characters, nuttin.
