I'm on record as a Frankie Darro fan, but whoever had the idea of portraying him as a boxer probably never saw a real athlete. Darro's character is about the most uncoordinated guy trying to perform his scenes I've ever seen. Like when he's doing his training run or working the speed bag. Working the speed bag - there's a misnomer. One punch at a time was the best he could do to keep up with it.
So the battling messenger boy is used as a cover by a bunch of hoodlums to steal an expensive, but seemingly cursed diamond with a history of bad luck for it's owner. I'm trying to understand why once the deal was made with Stevens (Edward Earle), Moreland (Robert Fiske) needed the other four thugs to hang around and make a nuisance of themselves. And really, couldn't the writers have come up with two different cover stories for Moreland and Jerry Carter (Kane Richmond)? Did they both have to be researching the exact same story about Joaquin Murietta? Another eye roller if you ask me.
When I see pictures like this, I have to wonder what audiences of the time really thought about them. The character dialog is totally unnatural, and the situations are so forced they don't make any sense at all. Like Darro's character picking fights with the henchmen at the drop of a hat and usually for no reason. And the brawl at the restaurant where the guy gets his nose in a piece of toast not once, but three times! What are the odds?
But I can't stop. I have a Mill Creek Entertainment collection with two hundred fifty of these gems on sixty DVD's. It's their Mystery Collection, and if you're a fan of stuff like this, it's about the best value you can find for the money. Frankie Darro's in there a bunch of times, including another boxing flick with Kane Richmond as his fight manager in 1936's "Born to Fight". Darro wasn't too coordinated in that one either.
So the battling messenger boy is used as a cover by a bunch of hoodlums to steal an expensive, but seemingly cursed diamond with a history of bad luck for it's owner. I'm trying to understand why once the deal was made with Stevens (Edward Earle), Moreland (Robert Fiske) needed the other four thugs to hang around and make a nuisance of themselves. And really, couldn't the writers have come up with two different cover stories for Moreland and Jerry Carter (Kane Richmond)? Did they both have to be researching the exact same story about Joaquin Murietta? Another eye roller if you ask me.
When I see pictures like this, I have to wonder what audiences of the time really thought about them. The character dialog is totally unnatural, and the situations are so forced they don't make any sense at all. Like Darro's character picking fights with the henchmen at the drop of a hat and usually for no reason. And the brawl at the restaurant where the guy gets his nose in a piece of toast not once, but three times! What are the odds?
But I can't stop. I have a Mill Creek Entertainment collection with two hundred fifty of these gems on sixty DVD's. It's their Mystery Collection, and if you're a fan of stuff like this, it's about the best value you can find for the money. Frankie Darro's in there a bunch of times, including another boxing flick with Kane Richmond as his fight manager in 1936's "Born to Fight". Darro wasn't too coordinated in that one either.
