The Diamond Wizard

An American Treasury agent (Dennis O'Keefe) teams up with a Scotland Yard inspector (Philip Friend) to track down a group of thieves that are creating artificial diamonds out of sugar.

This film seems to be a bit of a mystery. The BFI considers it lost, despite prints being readily available -- even on YouTube and Netflix. And then the director is a bit of a debate. Whether the print is the American or English one, the director name is switched. The film itself does not seem to be different in different prints.

The plot is pretty good, and the idea of synthetic diamonds is interesting. One has to wonder... could synthetic diamonds be made so well that there would be no real chemical difference?

The Diamond Wizard (1954)

A goofy, lighthearted, sprawling smuggling and international crime film. Yes, a contradiction. But boy are there zany aspects, like the low-tech high stakes attempts to make diamonds artificially. And the main characters are a British and an American agent both after the same charming American woman who is suddenly in town.

You might enjoy this as a spoof (which it is not), or as pure camp (which it almost is). There are false foreign accents, talking and reading from criminal files, and constant back and forths (with literal winking) between the two men, who seem to work well together by doing the same thing at the same time.

The odd thing is it's all kind of fun. It helps to have something else to do while watching--you won't miss any details, I think, since it putters along with easy to follow twists. The one scene to watch is the opening one, which gives away not only the very low budget limitations but also the basic characters involved. At other points there are little delights--like when the ship's whistle blows and we see the top of a ship, until the camera pulls back and you find we are looking at a model.

So, if you don't mind a little silly romp with lots of scenes and a fairly ambitious scope, but with a frivolous and frankly low quality aspect, you might just like this. It's not awful, which is something. Parts of it look like they were shot in Frankenstein's castle. And there is a really terrific escalator scene that is almost worth it right there, toward the end, better than the movie deserves. And what are "pure galvanized iron filings" you might ask?

Because of cheaper production costs, many Hollywood projects were moving abroad during this time period. This movie appears one of them. Add the 3-D effects from that short-lived craze, and the movie dates itself. Though working through a rather complex storyline, the 83-minutes amounts to a pretty good crime drama. American O'Keefe and Britisher Friend are cops collaborating in good allied fashion to run down a gang of crooks traveling from the US to Britain. Their aim is to buy a million dollars of fake diamonds. Seems the classy Sheridan's elderly father has a formula for creating the fakes that could upset whole economies if spread. So our two cops have their work cut out.

Some good touches like action on the escalator and 3-D sparks flying-at-you lend visual interest. Then too, byplay between the two male leads is cleverly scripted and well acted. Production also makes good use of London locations that lend color. And how about that whiz-bang ending that had me thinking world's end. And, boy, I sure could have used more scenes with the delectable Ms Sheridan. On other hand, the plot development tends to get turgid and over-crowded at times. Nonetheless, the sum total is a pretty good thriller deserving of 6 and1/2 stars.

This has something of the "Rumpelstiltskin" to it, only it's not straw into gold, it's sugar into diamonds! "Dennison" (Dennis O'Keefe) is on the trail of some thieves who stole a fortune in US treasury bonds and are heading to London to do a deal with the gem fakers. His arrival sees him allied with "Insp. McClaren" (Philip Friend). This policeman is also working on a more sensitive case involving a nuclear scientist - and it just so happens that his daughter "Marline" (Margaret Sheridan) is wearing a brooch with one of the Wonka-jewels in it. As we discover who made it, the threads of the story start to come together - but who is pulling whose strings? It's a bit long and takes a while to get started, but once the wheels are in motion it's not a bad little thriller with some magical science (courtesy of Paul Hardtmuth) and a bit of menace from the usually reliable Francis de Wolff. It's all production line stuff with themes based on already well used, adequate acting and predictable plot-lines , but it is watchable enough.

One of those chatty Brit crime films with American guest stars that's the cinema version of a comfortable sweater, a good a way as any to spend 84 minutes watching TV. The two best reasons to watch it: the end with a fight by a giant, futuristic looking electrical furnace belching flames and Margaret Sheridan doing justice to a tight sweater, speaking of sweaters. There's also a British policewoman who's very arresting.