Just Ask for Diamond (1988)

Director:

Stephen Bayly

Writers:

Anthony Horowitz (novel)
Anthony Horowitz (screenplay)

Release Date:

30 November 1990 (USA)

Genre:

Family | Comedy | Crime

Tagline:

When all seems lost... just ask for Diamond!

Plot Keywords:

Hard Boiled | Smarter Kid | Brother | Spoof | Detective

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Colin Dale	...	Nick Diamond
Saeed Jaffrey	...	Mr. Patel
Dursley McLinden	...	Tim Diamond
José René Ruiz	...	Johnny Naples (as Rene Ruiz)
Michael Robbins	...	Fat Man
Donald Standen	...	Lawrence
Patricia Hodge	...	Betty Charlady / Brenda von Falkenberg
Jim McManus	...	Hammett
Jimmy Nail	...	Boyle
Roy Kinnear	...	Jack Splendide
Bill Paterson	...	Chief Inspector Snape
Forbes Collins	...	Henry von Falkenberg
Peter Eyre	...	Gott
Nickolas Grace	...	Himmell
Jonathan Linsley	...	Bouncer

Also Known As:

Diamond's Edge

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Gaddesden Place, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Company:

British Screen Productions

Movie Connections:

Features Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Soundtrack:

My Little Guy

Worth my time.

Of course the film Just Ask For Diamond, directed by Stephen Bayly, is different from the novel by Anthony Horowitz. Time (and budget too) demands the story is edited so as to fit over 200 pages of text into 90 minutes of film. Indeed, the result is that a lot of interesting events are cut from the plot as well as many of the novel's original and charming characteristics. Dialogues are shortened, the narrator is more or less removed, violence is toned down. Where the novel has a tough and very cynical 13-year-old who has not got a good word for anyone or anything he has to deal with -the city of London, for instance, is presented as if it were the capital of Hell, the film presents us with sweet and adorable-looking Colin Dale who seems concerned more with maintaining a Received Pronunciation accent than playing a poor kid on the brink of the precipice. And London has come to look about as menacing as the green pastures where the TeleTubbies live. Still, the man responsible for the screenplay is the same as the one who wrote the book and he leaves us with enough to enjoy Just Ask For Diamond (a.k.a. Diamond's Edge). Dursley McLinden is the perfect cast for clumsy Tim, Susannah York makes a wonderful numbed-by-grief Lauren Bacardi, Patricia Hodge is a hit in two widely differing roles, Jimmy Nail looks exactly like what we have in mind when we think of a fascist London cop, there's a half a dozen of talented actors playing the crooks, and even Colin Dale, despite the posh accent, makes a nice lead and makes you wish you could stay a little boy for all your life. A lot of the humour is still there, but since it's mostly on a verbal level one should not rely on subtitles.