La chute d'un caïd

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.

As the title states, the film follows the rise and fall of the 1920's narcissistic gangster, Legs Diamond.

Warner Bros. certainly knew how to make gangster movies—Little Caesar (1930), Public Enemy (1931), High Sierra (1941)-- but this entry is a long way from these classics. It's a decent enough crime drama, but lacks the grit and menace of the classics. As a result, the story unfolds in entertaining but unmemorable fashion. Danton tries hard, snarling when he needs to, yet he may be a little too sleekly handsome to be convincing. After all, Cagney, Bogart, etc. were hardly matinée idols, and in a way that didn't clash with their expressions of toughness. Neither, however, is the movie helped by casting the faintly comical character Jesse White (Butch) as Legs' chief rival.

Too bad the movie doesn't make better use of Warren Oates who's kind of shoved aside as Legs' sickly brother. He would have made an excellent toughie as his career later showed. Also, it's worth noting the film was directed by western ace Buddy Boetticher, who certainly knew how to drive action and suspense in his Ranown cycle of westerns. Here, however, he doesn't appear particularly engaged.

For some reason the late 50's and early 60's were fascinated with real life gangster stories— Al Capone (1956), The Untouchables (1959-1963), Murder Inc. (1960), et. al. This 100- minutes is one of that cycle. But oh well, no matter what the movie's shortcomings, at least the girls provide plenty of eye candy.

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.

I have never seen a bad action/western movie that was directed by Budd Boetticher and this crime/biography on the real 1920-30's mobster Legs Diamond is no exception. I am a bit surprised that the handsome and suave Ray Danton who plays the real life 1920-30's criminal Jack 'Legs' Diamond falls into a role that he was born (and die) to play.

I assume the film took some liberties with the storyline to keep the film flowing smoothly (which it does) such as "Legs" nickname being derived from his supposedly excelling on the dance floor. Legs did actually have a brother in real life named Eddie who is played to perfection by the classic character actor Warren Oates.

Also true to form where the many unsuccessful assassination attempts on Jack "Legs" Diamond's life, and his womanizing ways which is another reason that the handsome and suave actor Ray Danton was perfect for the role. The film adds even more credibility by adding an abundance of classically trained actors to the ensemble which includes Simon Oakland, Jesse White, Frank DeKova, as well as the beautiful actresses Karen Steele, Dyan Cannon and Elaine Stewart. It wasn't a fluke that the Director Budd Boetticher chose Ray Danton to play the lead role of Legs Diamond. Danton was born to play the role.

I believe the film is a grossly underrated crime/biography film and the black and white filmography only adds to the films historical value. I give the film a much deserved 7 out of 10 IMDb rating.

Danton passed away at the early age of sixty (60) from a kidney failure which otherwise would have allowed him to advance his film career as a veteran film actor.

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.