Swamp Diamonds

(1955) zero stars


In this unwatchable Roger Corman flick three women, who stole a large quanity of diamonds, are now serving time for their crime (they all share the same prison cell, of course). An extremely ugly policewoman goes undercover in the guise of another prisoner in an effort to determine where the ladies hid their diamond stash. Apparently not understanding the concept of subtlety, the policewoman immediately starts talking about diamonds, which inexplicably does not raise any suspicion in the 3 inmates. Eventually aiding their escape, the 4 woman head to the swamp, where as the title might suggest to you, the diamonds are hidden. After discovering that their boat has a hole in it, they steal another boat from a man and his extremely whiny girlfriend. In an attempt to escape from the clutches of the inmate, the whiny girlfriend falls into someone’s swimming pool (Corman doesn’t even attempt to convince us that she fell into a swamp) and she is promptly eaten by an alligator. No one, including the boyfriend of this whiny chick, seems to care that she became alligator bait. In fact, in the very next scene he is flirting with the inmates. After LONG, LONG scenes of boating through the swamp, the gang eventually retrieves the diamonds. What ensues is a double cross and not a whole lot else.

This is another AWFUL Corman effort that is short on plot and replete with padding. I would wager that a good third of this short film is simply shots of the characters’ boat meandering its way through the swamp accompanied by a bad early-60s soundtrack. This film was obviously shot over a weekend with little budget. My guess is that Corman assumed that teenagers would be making out during his b-movie so why bother putting any effort into something that will never be seen right?