The Devil Diamond

The Van Groode Jewelry Company purchases the Jarvis Diamond, worth a quarter of a million dollars, but also named the Devil Diamond because the owners or possessors of the stone become cursed. Hoping to make the diamond more marketable (as well as eliminate or lessen the curse), the jewelry company decides to have the stone cut. The job is handled by Peter Lanning, an expert gemologist who operates low key out of a boarding house in San Juan, where he lives with his daughter Dorothy. Stevens, a member of the company, conspires with a jewel thief Morgan to have the stones stolen. To make a front for his activities, he has his henchman train a young kid Lee for a prizefight, while Morgan, aka Moreland, researches for a book on Joaquin Murietta. Jerry Carter, an insurance adjuster hired by the jewelry company, also stays at the boarding house also researching a book on Murietta. When Morgan has Lanning abducted and Stevens killed (to get the stones for himself), Jerry, Lee, and Dorothy have to act. The film is strictly run of the mill with no surprises or anything new going for it. Darro's character seems to be picking fights with Morgan's henchmen every 5 minutes (and weak fights at that). Richmond spends the entire film walking around and looking through windows (as does Fiske as the Morgan). I did enjoy Baker's character (Yvonne) as the teenage girl with a crush on Lee and unable to take his hints to scram. The production values are nothing to write home about either. Rating, based on B-movies, 4.

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.

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

Let me see if I've got this fairly straight….the Jarvis Diamond is "secretly" being sent down to a retired jeweler living in a little town named San Juan, there to be broken up into small pieces for safe disposal. A man named Morgan rolls into town and checks in to a boarding house to lay in wait to steal the diamond, posing in the meantime as a professor researching a book on a historical figure from the area. Our hero (Kane Richmond) checks in to the same boarding house and announces that he himself is in town to—you guessed it—research a book he's writing on the same figure. Meanwhile, several of Morgan's henchman have arrived in town under separate cover: they are allegedly training a featherweight fighter for a bout that may or may not be coming up in the foreseeable future. This "boxer" turns out to be our other hero, Frankie Darro.

Richmond strikes up a romance with the landlady, June Gale (who is the daughter of the retired jeweler), while young Darro finds himself the object of attentions of Rosita Butler, an eager young lady who spends the entire picture chasing after Frankie and being rebuffed.

Yes, that's about it. Darro picks a lot of fights with the dull-witted henchmen. Richmond kind of hangs around waiting for something to happen. Gale dotes on her elderly father and tries to get him to lay off of working so hard on cracking up this diamond. Butler eventually steals a peck on the cheek from Frankie Darro. The bad guys grumble about having nothing to do.

Not a lot of twists in this plot. And I've got to say that this film contains more than the usual number of moments where a character does something really dumb. For example, if you want to hide a teabag containing diamonds, don't fold it up in this morning's newspaper sitting right on the kitchen table! Duh! However, The Devil Diamond has got some decent action and some energetic performances—at least the cast look like they're trying. And so it's obviously worth a look for us fans of the "comedy-mystery B movie" genre.

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.