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the audience applauded

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely the worst movie.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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!

As the title states, the film follows the rise and fall of the 1920's narcissistic gangster, Legs Diamond.Warner Bros. certainly knew how to make gangster movies—Little Caesar (1930), Public Enemy (1931), High Sierra (1941)-- but this entry is a long way from these classics. It's a decent enough crime drama, but lacks the grit and menace of the classics. As a result, the story unfolds in entertaining but unmemorable fashion. Danton tries hard, snarling when he needs to, yet he may be a little too sleekly handsome to be convincing. After all, Cagney, Bogart, etc. were hardly matinée idols, and in a way that didn't clash with their expressions of toughness. Neither, however, is the movie helped by casting the faintly comical character Jesse White (Butch) as Legs' chief rival. Too bad the movie doesn't make better use of Warren Oates who's kind of shoved aside as Legs' sickly brother. He would have made an excellent toughie as his career later showed. Also, it's worth noting the film was directed by western ace Buddy Boetticher, who certainly knew how to drive action and suspense in his Ranown cycle of westerns. Here, however, he doesn't appear particularly engaged. For some reason the late 50's and early 60's were fascinated with real life gangster stories— Al Capone (1956), The Untouchables (1959-1963), Murder Inc. (1960), et. al. This 100- minutes is one of that cycle. But oh well, no matter what the movie's shortcomings, at least the girls provide plenty of eye candy.

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.

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.