The Devil Diamond

I was never a great fan of Frankie Darro until I realized that this feisty kid always did his own daring stunts. "The Devil Diamond" proves no exception. The rest of the players are also quite interesting, because (1) this is the last film made by the lovely Joan Gale, and (2) it's the only movie of Rosita Baker. Joan Gale's twin sister, June Gale, had a longer career but played mostly bit parts. Maybe Joan decided to quit which she was ahead. She's a most attractive and charming lass here. Then there's Rosita Baker who gives a very spirited, but entirely "natural" performance as a lovelorn pest who keeps annoying our little hero. Oddly, despite the fact that she virtually steals the movie, this is Miss Baker's only film appearance! Also deserving our attention are Jack Ingram, as the most prominent of the henchmen, and Byron Foulger in an early film role which he quite convincingly plays with a Swedish accent! Admittedly, the story is not much to get excited about, but it packs in an occasional bit of "B"-grade action and is very nicely photographed in SepiaTone.

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.

Kane Richmond and Frankie Darro star in this crime story about the plot to steal a famous cursed diamond before its cut.

The plot has gangsters using the notion of training Frankie for a fight as a cover to wait for the diamonds in the boarding house run by the man who's going to cut the diamond. Kane shows up, nominally to research the life of a local figure, however he's really a special agent sent by the jewelers association to keep the diamond safe. Most of the movie is Frankie battling his handlers who are waiting for word the diamond is coming their way and the romantic entanglements of Kane and Frankie.

This is enjoyable romp, seemingly aimed more at the family or juvenile audience than a regular picture, this is a good way to spend an afternoon at the movies. Another film that won't win any awards this movie gets points for its humor and its mostly less than serious attitude. (If I must say something bad its that the acting of the woman Kane Richmond falls for is fair at best)

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.

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.