The Rise And Fall Of Legs Diamond (1960)

Set in the 1920s, a heartless dancer (Ray Danton) has higher ambitions than dancing. He wants to rise to the top of the gangland empire and he'll use anybody (including family and lovers) in his climb to the top. Budd Boetticher is most famous for his superb string of 1950s westerns starring Randolph Scott. Here he steps into the gangster genre, it's almost a homage to those Warner gangster films of the 1930s. As Legs Diamond, Ray Danton doesn't have the acting chops or star power that a Cagney or Edward G. Robinson would have brought to the part though to be fair, those actors didn't have the "pretty boy" looks to be convincing. There's not much Boetticher can do with the standard stereotypical script except give it some style. Lucien Ballard (TRUE GRIT) gives the B&W lensing an elegant look. With Karen Steele, Dyan Cannon (in her film debut), Warren Oates, Elaine Stewart, Simon Oakland, Frank De Kova, Jesse White and Robert Lowery.