A well known racketeer of the Twenties and early Thirties, who has served as inspiration for a novel and a Broadway play, as well as this movie, Jack "Legs" Diamond is still remembered today. This film is a tightly written and well played gangster drama, with a surprisingly strong vein of black comedy running through it. Director Boetticher said in an interview that he wanted to make a gangster picture unlike any other, that had a sense of humor, and he claimed to have learned a lot of funny anecdotes from real hoodlums who had known Diamond, and incorporated them into the picture. Ray Danton is unforgettable as Diamond. His startlingly good looks make an ironic contrast with his ruthless pursuit of money and power. Legs is able to charm any woman into helping him, and conning other gangsters who think they're smarter than he is. His deep voiced delivery can be either amusing when he makes a wisecrack ,or genuinely menacing when it's obvious Legs isn't kidding about his demands. The other real life mobsters are played broadly, with actors best known for their comedy roles, including Jesse White as Leo, Diamond's primary obstacle to overcome. Robert Lowery portrays Diamond's boss Arnold Rothstein as a cynical and world weary man, who can get more out of one line of dialogue than pages of it. His giving an expensive watch to Diamond with the bitterly polite remark " Just consider it a token of how much I trust you" is a moment that lingers after the movie is over. Joseph Ruskin is quite sinister in his role of Matt Moran, Diamond's deadliest enemy. The scene in which they finally meet for a fatal encounter is a brilliant example of taut, suspenseful direction. The musical score by Leonard Rosenman is very effective, with its jaunty main theme that occurs in several variations throughout the picture. One interesting touch is that the tense, spooky music that accompanies one of Diamond's early crimes, the burglary of a jewelry store, sounds remarkably like the planetarium music Rosenman composed for Rebel Without a Cause some five years earlier. The Twenties backgrounds are believable and the action scenes are exciting. The film does falter a bit toward the end, as Diamond seems to go downhill too rapidly. The filmmakers were obviously trying to mollify the censors by showing Diamond as getting his comeuppance in an overly dramatic way, after basically showing him as the hero we've been rooting for for the greater part of the film. One more observation should be made: the performance by Warren Oates as Eddie, Diamond's consumptive younger brother, is very good, and his slightly more honorable attitudes show Legs up even more as the ruthless , egocentric criminal he is. This is an excellent movie that should appeal to anyone who likes the old gangster pictures with Cagney, Robinson, Raft, and Bogart.
Review of The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
