Diamond Jim (1935)

Interesting facts

Diamond Jim is a 1935 biographical film based on the published biography Diamond Jim Brady by Parker Morell. It follows the life of legendary entrepreneur James Buchanan Brady, including his romance with entertainer Lillian Russell, and stars Edward Arnold, Jean Arthur, Cesar Romero and Binnie Barnes.

Production

Diamond Jim, which had a working title of Diamond Jim Brady, was based on the 1933 biography of Brady by Parker Morrell, to which Universal purchased the rights. However, prior to that, Paramount Pictures had bought the rights to a short story by Mike Simmons based on Brady's life, and had registered the title with the Hays Office. Paramount subsequently protested Universal's production, but how the matter was resolved is not known.

Brady died in 1917, but Edward Arnold had met him twice early in his acting career: once when Brady came to meet an actress who was performing in the show Arnold was in, and once when he came backstage to meet Ethel Barrymore, whose acting company Arnold was a part of.

Joseph Breen, head of the Hays Office, objected to the sexual innuendo in the relationship between "Jane" and "Briggs", who was supposedly her uncle, and wanted it changed as it violated the Code. In addition, Dorothy Russell, the daughter of Lillian Russell, objected that the screenplay misrepresented the relationship between Brady and Russell, which she characterized as not a lifelong friendship, but a short term acquaintanceship that lasted on…

Diamond Jim was in production from 3 April to 20 May 1935, at a cost of over $750,000. The filming of the train crash took place at a narrow-gauge railway near San Luis Obispo, California with vintage cars donated by the Pacific Coast Railway. Jack Foley, head of Universal's sound effects department, recorded the crash.

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