mark.waltz Not bad for what it is, this B crime thriller with lots of moments of comedy is fast and furious and includes the right amount of ingredients to make it satisfactory B movie fare. It all concerns a cut up diamond stolen and prepared to be sold and the chase to find the culprits. Diminutive Darro (at 5'3" one of the smallest leading men outside of Alan Ladd and Mickey Rooney) poses as a prize fighter in order to infiltrate the den of thieves and works along side special agent Kane Richmond. He also has to deal with the constant cloying attentions of perky teen June Gale whose schtick gets a little tired after a while. There's plenty of action though and a nice car chase finale, but most of the film I had pretty much forgotten about outside Darro's temperament, Gale's clinging onto him and a few of the more powerful action scenes. As directed by Leslie Goodwin (equal to William Beaudine and Samuel Katzman as a fast moving quota quickie director), this isn't something I'd push onto film classic aficionados other than to take a look at the career of the extremely likable Darro, a Bowery Boy type without all the bad malapropisms and certainly an actor of some note who has a cult following but isn't as well remembered as he should be.

Tom Willett (yonhope) 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.

kidboots Kane Richmond and Frankie Darro were a screen team and they seemed to have a rapport together. Richmond was the romantic lead and Darro had the interesting role which was central to the action.When the Van Groode Jewellry Company purchase the Jarvis Diamond, also known as the Devil Diamond - they decide to get the diamond cut up to lessen the curse that is upon it. One of the jewelers' has gambling debts so he hires a thug to steal it. Frankie Darro plays Lee, a messenger boy with a good right hook. The gang of crooks plan to train Lee for a fight - but only as a front for their real operation - diamond stealing!!!Dorothy and her father, who has been given the job of cutting the diamond, run the rooming house where the thugs are holed up. Gerry (Kane Richmond) comes to the boarding house, outwardly studying the life of Joaquin Murietta but really he is a special agent for the Jewellers' Association, and is hired to see that the diamond isn't stolen. Fern Emmett - a Margaret Hamilton look alike, plays a mysterious lodger, Mrs. Wallace, whose daughter is very keen on Lee.Lee is getting frustrated. He doesn't think they care about his fighting future and confides his cares to Gerry. Frankie Darro has a couple of nifty fight scenes and considering he does his own stunts, makes them doubly impressive. A mysterious assailant is getting rid of the jewelers - one is shot on the highway and then Dorothy's father is kidnapped. Gerry is around to save the day and get the girl and Lee has to be content with Mrs. Wallace's pesky daughter.It's Okay.

Spuzzlightyear 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.