seymourblack-1 Fast moving, action-packed and violent, this account of the criminal career of Jack "Legs" Diamond (Ray Danton) is presented with the same energy and drive that the notorious gangster showed when he was making his way to the very top of the New York underground. His determination, ruthlessness and scheming enabled him to achieve his ambition but he was also a man with a fatal flaw which ultimately contributed to his downfall.Shortly after Jack and his sickly brother Eddie (Warren Oates) arrive in New York City, Jack meets dance instructor Alice Schiffer (Karen Steele) and is frustrated in his attempt to date her because she's due to take part in a dance competition. After pulling a couple of dirty tricks to incapacitate her dance partner and eliminate the couple who were expected to win, Jack and Alice win the competition and celebrate by going to a movie. During the performance, Jack exits the building via a skylight in the bathroom and steals a valuable necklace from the jewellery store next door before casually returning to his seat. After he slips the necklace into Alice's purse, the couple leave the building and avoid any problems with the police officers who are checking patrons outside because Alice is able to provide Jack with an alibi. Later that night, Jack dumps Alice because, in his eyes, she'd served her purpose.Jack is subsequently found guilty of the theft and serves time in prison before contacting Alice to assist him in getting paroled. She obliges, but after working as her dance partner for the duration of his parole, Jack dumps her again and then focuses on stealing from people who aren't able to go to the police for help. To this end, he tries unsuccessfully to get hired as a bodyguard by underground kingpin Arnold Rothstein (Robert Lowery) and instead, is taken on by another gangster called Little Augie (Sid Melton). Shorty after, he and Augie are attacked by a couple of gunmen and although Jack miraculously survives (despite sustaining three bullet wounds), his boss is killed. When Jack recovers, he takes his revenge on the gunmen in an act that impresses Rothstein sufficiently for him to hire Jack as his bodyguard.Jack uses his new job and an affair he has with Rothstein's girlfriend to learn everything he can about his boss' business and after Rothstein is killed in mysterious circumstances, establishes a protection racket to collect 25 % of the earnings made by the city's remaining crime bosses. Many complications follow as Jack gets shot again, marries Alice and sends Eddie away to a hospital in Denver to get treatment for his tuberculosis before having to deal with a whole series of further challenges, including the end of prohibition.Jack, as depicted in this movie, is charming, confident and an incredible opportunist who's clever at using various schemes to achieve his goals. He's absolutely ruthless and brutal in pursuing his aims and is particularly callous in his treatment of his brother and the three women with whom he has affairs. After repeatedly recovering from being shot, he actually starts to believe that he can't be killed by a gun and his wife Alice sums up her feelings about him when she says that "he never loved anybody". Ray Danton is perfect for his role and is, in fact, so good that it's hard to imagine that anyone else could have equalled his performance."The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" has a humorous undercurrent that works surprisingly well and also some top class camera-work. A low-angle shot of Jack seen through a skylight and an overhead shot of him standing outside a pawnbroker's shop are just a couple of examples of how well some of the scenes are composed. Overall, the movie is exciting and solidly entertaining and compares favourably in quality with the other gangster films (e.g. "Machine-Gun Kelly" and "Baby Face Nelson") which were so popular during the 1957 - 1960 period.

Martin Bradley Budd Boetticher's "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" may be studio bound and a little artificial at times but it moves at a cracking pace and is never less than hugely entertaining as well as being somewhat neglected. That good and underrated actor Ray Danton is Jack 'Legs' Diamond and he dominates a fine cast that includes Simon Oakland, Elaine Stewart and in small parts Warren Oates and a young Dyan Cannon,(called Diane here). Diamond's career in crime has been largely overlooked by the movies and I can't gauge just how accurately this film portrays him. If it is factually correct then Mr Diamond was one mean so-and-so!

sol ***SPOILERS*** Jack "Legs" Diamond, Ray Danton, was undoubtedly a nasty and ungrateful swine who beside killing people he also treated those who loved as well as put up with him like dirt. This in the end lead to his demise in an Albany hotel room on the evening of December 18,1931 when he ended up with five slugs in his body courtesy of the crime syndicate that he tried to muscle himself into. The arrogant an a bit muddled headed Diamond was set up by one of the women that he used and later dumped gangster Arnold "Big Bankroll, Rothstein's, Robert Lowery gun-moll Monica Blake, Elaine Stewart. It was Monica's way of getting back at the two-timing creep who like his long suffering wife Alice, Karen Steel, he had turned into a hapless and falling down on her head alcoholic!Diamond himself could be a very witty and charming fellow when he wanted to be but that was only to win over one's confidence whom he planned to use for his own advantage. Once he got his hooks into you it was good night Charlie! It's that way that Diamond rose to the top of the New York underworld. And in the end it was that kind of sleazy and back stabbing actions that ended up landing him on a cold slab at the Albany Hospital morgue! What was by far the most despicable thing that Diamond did was have his sick TB infected little brother Eddie, Warren Oates, die on the streets of Denver as a homeless person when he, despite having millions of dollars in ill gotten gains, refused to pay Eddie's hospital bills!It's when push came to shove in Diamond confronting the syndicate his own gang members deserted him in finally realizing that he wasn't exactly all there up-stairs. And weren't willing to end up in the same place, the grave, together with him. Alone with even his wife Alice, who put up with all the abuse he dished out on her, walking out on him Diamond dead drunk and barley awake, from all the booze in his system, would finally face justice! Not from the law but from those whom he was deeply involved with. And this time around, after three failed assassination attempts that left 11 bullets in his body, the bullets that Diamond thought that he was immune from found their mark!

MStillrage Good film. Warren Oates does well, and the photography is superb. A Scorsese caliber picture, before the Don of Urbana surfaced!! A well worth watching movie. It has the truth without the shine. It never slows or gets dull. Amazing for a movie with guys that were unknowns @ the time. Although it's a true story,it is depicted like a newsreel from the 30's. You feel like Legs himself.He has a contagious ambition, and he is naive to what new powers exist. He is heartless but always ambitious. His coldness towards others that are on his side amazes anyone. He wants to get ahead sooo bad, and he does. The story never gets dull, and ends with prophecy/look back.