WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Jack "Legs" Diamond, Ray Danton, was undoubtedly a nasty and ungrateful swine who beside killing people he also treated those who loved as well as put up with him like dirt. This in the end lead to his demise in an Albany hotel room on the evening of December 18,1931 when he ended up with five slugs in his body courtesy of the crime syndicate that he tried to muscle himself into. The arrogant an a bit muddled headed Diamond was set up by one of the women that he used and later dumped gangster Arnold "Big Bankroll, Rothstein's, Robert Lowery gun-moll Monica Blake, Elaine Stewart. It was Monica's way of getting back at the two-timing creep who like his long suffering wife Alice, Karen Steel, he had turned into a hapless and falling down on her head alcoholic!Diamond himself could be a very witty and charming fellow when he wanted to be but that was only to win over one's confidence whom he planned to use for his own advantage. Once he got his hooks into you it was good night Charlie! It's that way that Diamond rose to the top of the New York underworld. And in the end it was that kind of sleazy and back stabbing actions that ended up landing him on a cold slab at the Albany Hospital morgue! What was by far the most despicable thing that Diamond did was have his sick TB infected little brother Eddie, Warren Oates, die on the streets of Denver as a homeless person when he, despite having millions of dollars in ill gotten gains, refused to pay Eddie's hospital bills!It's when push came to shove in Diamond confronting the syndicate his own gang members deserted him in finally realizing that he wasn't exactly all there up-stairs. And weren't willing to end up in the same place, the grave, together with him. Alone with even his wife Alice, who put up with all the abuse he dished out on her, walking out on him Diamond dead drunk and barley awake, from all the booze in his system, would finally face justice! Not from the law but from those whom he was deeply involved with. And this time around, after three failed assassination attempts that left 11 bullets in his body, the bullets that Diamond thought that he was immune from found their mark!

mlraymond A well known racketeer of the Twenties and early Thirties, who has served as inspiration for a novel and a Broadway play, as well as this movie, Jack "Legs" Diamond is still remembered today. This film is a tightly written and well played gangster drama, with a surprisingly strong vein of black comedy running through it. Director Boetticher said in an interview that he wanted to make a gangster picture unlike any other, that had a sense of humor, and he claimed to have learned a lot of funny anecdotes from real hoodlums who had known Diamond, and incorporated them into the picture. Ray Danton is unforgettable as Diamond. His startlingly good looks make an ironic contrast with his ruthless pursuit of money and power. Legs is able to charm any woman into helping him, and conning other gangsters who think they're smarter than he is. His deep voiced delivery can be either amusing when he makes a wisecrack ,or genuinely menacing when it's obvious Legs isn't kidding about his demands. The other real life mobsters are played broadly, with actors best known for their comedy roles, including Jesse White as Leo, Diamond's primary obstacle to overcome. Robert Lowery portrays Diamond's boss Arnold Rothstein as a cynical and world weary man, who can get more out of one line of dialogue than pages of it. His giving an expensive watch to Diamond with the bitterly polite remark " Just consider it a token of how much I trust you" is a moment that lingers after the movie is over. Joseph Ruskin is quite sinister in his role of Matt Moran, Diamond's deadliest enemy. The scene in which they finally meet for a fatal encounter is a brilliant example of taut, suspenseful direction. The musical score by Leonard Rosenman is very effective, with its jaunty main theme that occurs in several variations throughout the picture. One interesting touch is that the tense, spooky music that accompanies one of Diamond's early crimes, the burglary of a jewelry store, sounds remarkably like the planetarium music Rosenman composed for Rebel Without a Cause some five years earlier. The Twenties backgrounds are believable and the action scenes are exciting. The film does falter a bit toward the end, as Diamond seems to go downhill too rapidly. The filmmakers were obviously trying to mollify the censors by showing Diamond as getting his comeuppance in an overly dramatic way, after basically showing him as the hero we've been rooting for for the greater part of the film. One more observation should be made: the performance by Warren Oates as Eddie, Diamond's consumptive younger brother, is very good, and his slightly more honorable attitudes show Legs up even more as the ruthless , egocentric criminal he is. This is an excellent movie that should appeal to anyone who likes the old gangster pictures with Cagney, Robinson, Raft, and Bogart.

bmacv The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond is Budd Boetticher's cold look at a cool customer. The low temperature extends to Lucien Ballard's crisply composed black-and-white cinematography and to Ray Danton's chilly assumption of the title role. With his `matinee-idol' looks and devil-may-care attitude, he prefigures another kind of `cool' that would arrive on screen a year or so later, that of James Bond.Like Bond, Diamond thinks faster than anybody around him; his quick wits and ready charm get him out of scrapes as a jewel thief who came down the Hudson from Albany to try his luck in Manhattan. But that luck fails him and he ends up doing a short stretch; when he gets out, he resolves to steal from only those who `can't call the police' - other criminals. And he starts his way up in the Arnold Rothstein operation.His fatal flaw is that he cares for nobody but himself, using people ruthlessly. The women in his life (Karen Steele, Elaine Stewart and the young Dyan Cannon) suffer particularly from their sub-zero lover, but even his sickly brother (Warren Oates) ends up cast out into the blizzard. Diamond's estrangement increases apace with his sense of his own invincibility; having survived, against all odds, a spray of bullets, he convinces himself that he can't be killed. He's wrong.Though he's right for Boetticher's conception of the part, Danton had less of a career than he might have. He appeared in a few late films in the moribund noir cycle (as the psychotic killer in The Night Runner and as the Aspirin Kid in The Beat Generation) but, after this film, worked mostly in European cinema (by which such names as Fellini, Bergman or Godard should not be inferred).Boetticher has a few noir credentials as well (Behind Locked Doors, The Killer is Loose) but seems uneasy in how, on the cusp of Camelot, to spin this jazz-age tale. He opts for detachment, structuring the movie as a choppy series of vignettes - almost tableaux - that don't flow (several of the incidents clamor for more explanation, but he leaves us to fill in the missing pieces). And finally, neither director nor actor gives a sound accounting of the changes in Diamond: How the winsome scoundrel of the opening turns into the cold-blooded shark of the finish.

Allen J. Duffis (sataft-2) For the record, this film is historically inaccurate: not for the events, but for the true life character portrayals and interactions.For instance, there is no evidence in the record of the time that Arnold (The Big Bankroll) Rothstein ever formally met with Jack "Legs" Diamond. Nor is there any record of Diamond having anything to do with Rothstein's girlfriend or his gangland assassination.Despite these gaps in historical fact, this is one of the most highly entertaining ( of the 1960's crop) of films ever made of that era. In fact many film critics hold to the opinion that most, if not all, of the gangster films of the sixties, were poor attempts to copy the style and success of this one. The production is tightly written, well paced and beautifully filmed by a director (Bud Boetticher) who knew his way around black and white photography. And they couldn't have picked a better subject of the Prohibition Era than Jack "Legs" Diamond.Jack Diamond was not called "Legs" because he worked for a short time as a dancer, but for the fact that he was initially a highly successful 'snatch and run' thief in the garment district. But he did eventually get caught and served a stint in prison. But forget the historical inaccuracies and enjoy this never boring gangster film.Ray Danton, one of the most highly underrated actors of his time, gives a riveting fast paced portrayal of Diamond that will be hard to surpass. Not only is he believable in the outrageous stunts he pulls, but he just as easily exposes a manic and tragic side to his character as well: all without missing a beat.This unusual film also allows you to see some of the screens most memorable character actors at their best. But most of all, you get to see two soon to be famous actors on their way up.This was actress Dyan Cannon's first film, in a memorable role as the character,Dixie. And soon to be veteran character Warren Oates makes his third appearance in the movies as "Legs" Diamond's brother, Eddie. A careful study his early acting skills in this role, clearly defines why he went on to become one of the most endearing and recognizable character actors of all time.Trust me on this one, fans. Whether you like Depression Era gangster films or not, you will be constantly entertained by this one. Don't miss it!