Just perfect...

Brilliant and touching

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Budd Boetticher's "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" may be studio bound and a little artificial at times but it moves at a cracking pace and is never less than hugely entertaining as well as being somewhat neglected. That good and underrated actor Ray Danton is Jack 'Legs' Diamond and he dominates a fine cast that includes Simon Oakland, Elaine Stewart and in small parts Warren Oates and a young Dyan Cannon,(called Diane here). Diamond's career in crime has been largely overlooked by the movies and I can't gauge just how accurately this film portrays him. If it is factually correct then Mr Diamond was one mean so-and-so!

Ray Danton brings a suave cold charm to the title role of this film about the Roaring 20s gangster. The usually wooden Danton, nattily attired with a pair of shoulder holsters, cuts quite a figure as he shoots, seduces and betrays his way to achieve his ambitious goals.Jack Diamond and his handicapped brother come to the big city in search of a new start as jewelery thieves. This venture get's him jailed but it fails to dampen his desire for fast cash and he begins to rob crooks in order to eliminate police involvement. He catches the eye of big time gambler Arnold Rothstein, fixer of the 1918 World Series. He goes to work as a bodyguard for Rothstein who is later murdered thus expediting Leg's rise.Budd Boeticher directs economically, benefiting both pace and story line as well as Diamond's sharkish style self assuredly delivered by Danton. He also does a nice job of keeping Diamond's involvement in the rub out of Rothstein ambiguous (an unsolved murder to this day) as he attempts to follow the factual outline of his career. In addition Lucien Ballard's photography gives the studio interiors and exteriors an extra touch of grit and noir in one of the better gangster pictures made during a period when the genre was in a bit of a funk.

***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!

I'd never heard a thing about this one before I put it in my video player. I knew Warren Oates (one of my favourite character actors - 'The Shooting', 'The Wild Bunch', 'Two-Lane Blacktop', 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia',etc.) was in the supporting cast and that was enough for me to give it a go. I know absolutely nothing about the real life exploits of 1930s gangster Jack 'Legs' Diamond, so this movie is more than likely utter fiction, but hey, I didn't watch it for a history lesson, I watched it to be entertained, and it certainly did that! It's a terrific picture, very cool and constantly engaging. Oates plays Legs' sickly "lunger" brother Eddie and he's very good, as are the three sexy women in Legs' life (Karen Steele, Elaine Stewart and a young Dyan Cannon). There are also several familiar faces in the supporting cast that you'll recognize from half forgotten old movies , but Ray Danton completely steals the film as Diamond. I'm very surprised after watching this that Danton didn't go on to be a major star as he is very charismatic and a credible actor. If you like crime movies try and find 'The Rise And Fall Of Legs Diamond'. It may be obscure but it's a really good b-picture and not to be overlooked.