Diamond Jim (1935) Reviews

• Another Arnold Triumph

  theowinthrop2004-11-08

  James Buchanan Brady made a fortune in the development of American Railroads - the cutting edge of 19th Century technology (as the internet is today). Brady, unlike Vanderbilt, Gould, Fisk, Drew, Harriman, and Hill, did not build up a vast system of railroad lines like the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Grand Central Railroad, or the Baltimore and Ohio System. Instead he sold the Railroads equiptment they needed, in particular the rolling stock (i.e. the railways car). But he was a man who enjoyed life. He weighed over three hundred pounds by his eating the largest meals imaginable (a typical meal for Brady would have five main courses, and end with a box of candy - oddly enough he never drank: his favorite drink was orange juice). He romanced the leading entertainer of the day, Ms Lillian Russell. An advanced psychological thinker, Brady wore different sets of expensive jewelry with his different suits - to advertise his success, and impress railway executives to use him to get the materials that they needed. He never was married (Ms Russell loved him dearly, but did not want to marry him). He died in 1917 of urinary problems due to his diet. His fortune was used to fund an important foundation at Johns Hopkins for the study of urology. The script for this 1935 film was by Preston Sturgis, and was one of his best films (sans his own directed ones). Arnold does very well in it, playing the good natured, clever Brady as a sharp but decent person (which he was), who despite his great financial and social success never achieved his happiness. He dies when he sees that there is no point in pursuing the stringent diet that would prolong his lonely life, so after burning I.O.U.s from his friend, he insists he have the "normal" meal he enjoys. Arnold is last seen heading for the meal that will help kill him. He will eat himself to death. A really bizaare film conclusion - but with Sturgis's script and Arnold's acting it is successfully pulled off.

• Edward Arnold Excellent

  drednm2012-06-15

  In maybe his most famous role, Edward Arnold stars as Diamond Jim Brady, the outsized financier in the late 19th century who builds a fortune in the expanding American railroads. Brady was also a famous social figure along Broadway and was famous as Lillian Russell's friend and famous for his immense appetite for fine foods. Lucky in business but not in love, Brady comes off as a shrewd but genial man, one who values his friendships even with the women he may have been in love with. Arnold is just sensational as the blustery but jovial man who helps make Lillian Russell (Binnie Barnes) a star. He's perfectly believable as the ambitious baggage handler, the smooth-talking salesman, and the generous millionaire who likes to wear diamond jewelry Barnes is solid as Russell, the most famous singer of her day. Jean Arthur plays the vapid Southern girl, Brady first proposes to and a lookalike girl from New York he later meets and tries to marry. Cesar Romero plays the guy she's in love with, but he's dating Russell. Co-stars include George Sidney as the pawnbroker, Eric Blore as the inventor, Hugh O'Connell plays the businessman who gives Brady his big start, and William Demarest plays the waiter. Edward Arnold was so famous for playing Diamond Jim that he repeated in the role in 1940 in LILLIAN RUSSELL, which starred Alice Faye, Henry Fonda, and Don Ameche. This film is worth watching for Arnold's performance and for its look at America, when it was growing fast and prospering.

• A great movie!

  lewandd2008-12-21

  I haven't seen this movie for several years. If anyone can tell me where I may purchase it on DVD, I would greatly appreciate it. The acting of Edward Arnold as Diamond Jim was superb. Edward Arnold was always one of my favorite character actors and in this movie he shined. His characterization of Diamond Jim as a boisterous railroad tycoon showed a love of life. His portrayal also showed a sympathetic and humane side of the real Diamond Jim. Edward Arnold could always play larger than life characters with great ease and ability. Although this movie was made 73 years ago in 1935, the ease and naturalness of the acting still holds up today. Someone please tell me where I may purchase this movie.

• Part episodic, part history lesson, all Edward Arnold.

  mark.waltz2015-11-02

  The character of Diamond Jim Brady was certainly larger than life, and so was the actor who played him in two different movies - Edward Arnold. This large girthed man was one of the great character actors of the golden age of cinema, playing wealthy patriarchs, opportunists who made it good, and evil industrialists who thought to destroy those who stood in his way with morality as their defense. With his role of Diamond Jim Brady in this film and later on in the 20th Century Fox musical lily and Russell, he left a piece of himself in the immortality of on screen biographies, and while this film is certainly very enjoyable, it takes half the film for it to truly get off the ground. The first half of the movie focuses on the two different women in his life - Binnie Barnes as Lillian Russell and Jean Arthur as two different women who came in and out of his life. As seen with Alice Faye in the musical of Lillian Russell, he stood by her even though his love was returned, but her loyalty towards him never ceased. That is pretty much the same thing here, but the film insinuates that she loved him just as much as he loved her, but for some reason obstacles kept them from being together. Binnie Barnes does get to sing briefly as Lillian Russell, and has a much higher voice than Alice Faye. If there are any surviving recordings of the actual Lillian Russell singing it would be difficult to tell because of sound recording issues as to who she really sounded like. Cesar Romero appears in one of his early roles as Arnold's rival for Arthur. There is also a brief appearance of real life fighter John L. Sullivan whose individual story would be made into a movie on its own. However, the romance is not the interesting part of the story line. That explodes when the stock market crash causes Arnold to give a speech as to the importance of keeping the economy alive, and even though he has lost all his money, he takes a gamble and wins. I don't think that it was as easy as all that, because history has shown that massive financial losses do not just return overnight, and even with our Great Depression, it took several years into the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt to fix the economy. There is also a rather disturbing scene where two trains are heading towards each other at breakneck speed, one of them having both Arthur and Arnold on the train, and when the two collide, both trains fly into the air, but the injuries on both survivors of the train are minimal. The film does go into detail about Arnold's voracious appetite, and when he orders a table filled with oysters, lobsters and a large guinea hen, it is almost a disgusting meal to imagine. For Arnold's strong and entertaining performance, this is definitely worth seeing but the larger-than-life appetite for both life and food makes Arnold and Jim Brady a character that I would not want to have over for dinner. it is also ironic that a prologue at the beginning of the film says that the running time could never hope to present all of Diamond Jim Brady entire life, but what is really interesting doesn't appear until much later in the films. That makes it pretty much episodic from the beginning, with a twist in the middle. Is a total different structure than what the audience had gotten initially.

• Diamond Jim (1935)

  jearly-22005-04-08

  I saw this movie a couple of days ago at Film Forum, one of a double feature with another Sturgis film, If I Were King. Almost missed Diamond Jim because had never heard about it before, and only wanted to see the other film. After coming in a few minutes late, I found it fascinating also because of actor Edward Arnold, who played Diamond Jim more as a sympathetic, rather than, e.g. a pathetic, man. Aghast at his eating habits, I thought it morbid and indicative of depression. When I later read his biography on the Internet, I immediately thought that his dining habits might be a substitution for not drinking alcohol. Certainly a Type-A personality, and an Alpha-male. Big in every way, his largeness of appetite(s) was endearing and sad, in equal measures. Likely he could not have become what he became without the morbid appetite! Or he would have become an alcoholic or a drug addict -- the latter maybe less likely in his time and place. Definitely glad to have seen it, I recommend the movie. The movie was perhaps a forerunner of Leonardo DeCaprio's Howard Hughes in The Aviator.