Dateline Diamonds

I did! I'm a great fan of 60s music but the Small Faces are a huge part of the build up and a minor part of the film. It's "interesting" to watch Kiki Dee, The Chantelles and other pop "legends" but this is not a musical (in fact it's probably best to shut your eyes and ears when most of the music is on!).

The plot is, actually, not bad and all of us who are old enough to remember the Pirate Stations will be fascinated to see Big L used as a smuggling drop off point! Pretty predictable plot but the list of British movie stalwarts (Kenneth Cope, Conrad Phillips, William Lucas etc.) and Kenny Everett (wonderful to see him in 1965) make this a B movie that deserves an "average rating".

If you like 60s stuff then step this way!

DATELINE DIAMONDS is one of those cheesy British films that attempts to prop up a flagging plot by incorporating a number of musical routines into the running time; on offer here are performers including The Small Faces and Kiki Dee. How much you enjoy said music depends on your liking of the talent involved, so as ever, your mileage may vary on this one.

The rest of the film is a kind of quasi-crime thriller in which old hands William Lucas and Kenneth Cope are a couple of robbers who attempt to get away with the perfect crime. The only problem is that CARRY ON stalwart Patsy Rowlands happened to witness the crime, leading to plenty of nonsensical plotting and weak attempts at comedy.

Another stalwart of British crime cinema, Conrad Phillips, also makes an appearance. It's a pity that DATELINE DIAMONDS has such a poor script as with the right tinkering it might have been something more interesting, like the wacky GONKS GO BEAT. As it stands, it's depressingly poor.

Kenneth Cope is a manager for some up-and-coming rock acts. He's also a former criminal, having been jugged for stealing army property. Former officer William Lucas uses this to blackmail him into moving diamonds Lucas steals across international borders.

So this movie has a little bit of everything for a wide variety of audiences: crime, Interpol chasing the criminals, jewelry and rock & roll. What it does not have is decent editing to keep the various subplots straight, nor anything in the way of characterization beyond the characters telling each other who and what they are. At the end of its 70 minutes, there are plenty of loose threads left dangling. I suppose they hoped that no one would notice.

An otherwise nifty heist caper... with an agenda to promote the British band SMALL FACES... has two fitting actors, old and young, both having starred in several crime b-pictures, beginning with William Lucas, who played every incarnation of criminal... from cold-blooded to cowardly from THE BREAK to CALCULATED RISK to PAYROLL... and the intensely vulnerable Kenneth Cope from JUNGLE STREET, THE CONVICT and THE DAMNED...

Herein, Cope is the crooked manager of the band, and Lucas has his number... an intense actor never using costumes but here he resembles Inspector Clouseau if originally cast Peter Ustinov played him more straight, and his anti-chemistry with the younger Cope works surprisingly well... yet they mostly work together by remaining apart...

One scene shows Lucas stealing the diamonds, practically in real-time, step-by-step for a suspenseful ten-minutes where it seems anything can happen, especially with detective duo Conrad Phillips and George Mikell garnering more sporadic screen-time than the first-billed crooks: but what's supposed to matter is a rushed ending where the band plays a song or two, and the previous dirty work means nothing...

A shame because the terrifically pulpy-titled DATELINE DIAMONDS ultimately wastes a potentially good villain AND cop duo, entangled in an interesting plot... all so a music group could get a number one hit, which never panned-out: at least not because of this mostly forgotten programmer.

I'm not sure if the Chantelles, Kiki Dee and the Small Faces had the same record company, but you could easily be forgiven for thinking so as they feature substantially amongst this otherwise rather poor diamond heist caper with William Lucas as "Maj. Fairclough" who ropes the heavily indebted Kenneth Cope ("Benson") who manages the Small Faces, into a diamond smuggling racket using the famous "Big L" pirate radio ship as their conduit to Rotterdam. The performances - especially an early one from Kiki Dee are all this has going for it - and that's not really saying much. The sheer silliness of the last half hour as the police close in on their safecracker tests even the most enthusiastic supporter of serendipity in a police investigation. If you are a fan of 1960s pop culture, then it might just be worth watching but otherwise...