The Devil Diamond (1937)

A group of thugs tries to steal the cursed title gem from a jeweler who has been hired to cut it into small, saleable pieces.

Director:

Leslie Goodwins

Writers:

Charles R. Condon (adaptation), Charles R. Condon (screenplay),

Stars:

Frankie Darro, Kane Richmond, June Gale

Cast

Cast overview:
Frankie Darro	...	Lee aka Kid Harris
Kane Richmond	...	Jerry Carter
June Gale	...	Dorothy Lanning
Rosita Butler	...	Yvonne Wallace
Robert Fiske	...	'Professor' John Henry Morgan, alias Moreland
Charles Prince	...	Henchman Al
Edward Earle	...	Arthur Stevens
Fern Emmett	...	Miss Wallace
Byron Foulger	...	Ole--Houseboy (as Byron Folger)
George Cleveland	...	George Davis
Burr Caruth	...	Peter Lanning
Jack Ingram	...	Chuck--Thug
Frank McCarroll	...	Henchman Shorty

Storyline

A group of thugs tries to steal the cursed title gem from a jeweler who has been hired to cut it into small, saleable pieces.

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Plot Keywords:

jeweler | diamond | spiral | curse

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Genres:

Action | Crime

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 January 1937 (USA)

Also Known As:

Peter B. Kyne's The Devil Diamond

Company Credits

Production Co:

Conn Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

61 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Debut of Byron Foulger.

User Reviews

Frankie, why do you want to annoy those guys?!

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.