The Devil Diamond

After getting involved in a punching match, small town San Juan messenger boy Frankie Darro (as Lee Harris) is recruited by jewel thieves as a potential featherweight champ. Of course, it's a front for the criminally minded. While training for a championship bout that will never happen, Mr. Darro meets handsome and heroic mystery man Kane Richmond (as Jerry Carter). Claiming he's researching a book, Mr. Richmond acts more like a detective...

Hoping to avoid "The Devil Diamond" curse, superstitious jewelers have employed the father of rooming house hostess June Gale (as Dorothy Lanning) to cut some diamonds. She and Richmond have a mutual romantic interest. Jogging, jumping, and working out on the parallel bars in his cozy sweat pants, Darro arouses attention from boy-crazy Rosita Butler (as Yvonne Wallace). She likes looking at Darro's "pretty muscles," but has trouble getting a kiss...

***** The Devil Diamond (1/15/37) Leslie Goodwins ~ Frankie Darro, Kane Richmond, June Gale, Rosita Butler

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.

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.

The Van Groode Jewelry Company purchases the Jarvis Diamond, worth a quarter of a million dollars, but also named the Devil Diamond because the owners or possessors of the stone become cursed. Hoping to make the diamond more marketable (as well as eliminate or lessen the curse), the jewelry company decides to have the stone cut. The job is handled by Peter Lanning, an expert gemologist who operates low key out of a boarding house in San Juan, where he lives with his daughter Dorothy. Stevens, a member of the company, conspires with a jewel thief Morgan to have the stones stolen. To make a front for his activities, he has his henchman train a young kid Lee for a prizefight, while Morgan, aka Moreland, researches for a book on Joaquin Murietta. Jerry Carter, an insurance adjuster hired by the jewelry company, also stays at the boarding house also researching a book on Murietta. When Morgan has Lanning abducted and Stevens killed (to get the stones for himself), Jerry, Lee, and Dorothy have to act. The film is strictly run of the mill with no surprises or anything new going for it. Darro's character seems to be picking fights with Morgan's henchmen every 5 minutes (and weak fights at that). Richmond spends the entire film walking around and looking through windows (as does Fiske as the Morgan). I did enjoy Baker's character (Yvonne) as the teenage girl with a crush on Lee and unable to take his hints to scram. The production values are nothing to write home about either. Rating, based on B-movies, 4.

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)