Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

st-shot 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.

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.

bkoganbing Jack "Legs" Diamond was the alias of John T. Noland (1897-1931) who had one spectacular career in the underworld of the Roaring Twenties. Though we are far from seeing the real story of Legs Diamond, Ray Danton gives us a riveting portrayal of a totally amoral man who uses and discards people in his rise to the top. Diamond's career and this film about him is very much a harbinger of stuff like Goodfellas in the last decade.Right around this time Hollywood took a nostalgic interest in the gangster era. A whole lot of films like Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly an early Charles Bronson starrer, Dutch Schultz Portrait of a Mobster, and Murder, Inc. among others came out at this time. There was even a good series from Warner Brothers television that came out called The Roaring Twenties that starred Dorothy Provine. And of course heading the list was The Untouchables. The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond is part of this trend.This came from Warner Brothers and they certainly had the best gangster films back in the day. Had this been done back in the thirties, James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson would have been the star. However the best guy for the part back then would have been Tyrone Power. That is the Tyrone Power of Nightmare Alley. Ray Danton's portrayal of Diamond borrows a lot from Power's Stan Carlisle.This part and Danton's role in the George Raft Story should have made Danton a star, but it didn't, who knows why. Danton gave up acting and settled for life behind the camera, directing lots of television shows.Other good portrayals in this are Robert Lowery as Arnold Rothstein, Warren Oates as Diamond's brother, Karen Steele as his much used and abused wife, and Frank DeKova in one riveting scene as Lucky Luciano. DeKova is only identified as the "chairman" in the film as Mr. Luciano was very much alive when this came out.However the best supporting part is Jesse White's as a gangland rival. White who normally plays comic tough guys very well really does a fine job as a rival who Diamond makes crawl for mercy.Good portrayal of the tumultuous Roaring Twenties though not the real story of Legs Diamond.

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.