The Hope Diamond Mystery (1921)

This 15 chapter serial from Kosmik Film Co. certainly wasn’t the destination of Boris Karloff’s screen career, but it was the first definite signpost as to where that career was headed. 

Based, more or less, on Lady Francis Hope's book The Mystery of the Hope Diamond, the picture has everything a good cliffhanger needs, except a cliff. I don’t remember a cliff. Mary Yohe, formerly Lady Francis Hope, introduces the first few chapters to convince us that what we’re seeing isn’t hokum. Nice try.

The story begins in the present day. The diamond belongs to James Marcon (William Marion), a wealthy collector, and is coveted by Sidney Atherton (Harry Carter) who, for some reason, disguises himself as Nang Fu, an oriental criminal mastermind. Maybe that’s just a tip of the hat to Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu. Anyway, Marcon’s Hindu servant Dakar, (Boris Karloff) is always on the scene to look sinister but do his best to foil Atherton’s schemes.

Assisting on the side of the angels are criminologist/detective John Gregge (George Chesebro) and Marcon’s secretary Mary Hilton (Grace Darmond). But poor Mary is unaware that she has been under the hypnotic spell of Nang Fu or quite some time, maybe years. Atherton/Nang Fu’s gang includes Atherton’s wife (Carmen Phillips), who will come to believe that her husband wants the diamond so he can dump her and run off with Mary.

There are several attempts to steal the jewel before we take a break to travel back 400 years to Burma and the story of where the diamond originally came from. Writers John B. Clymer and Charles Goddard (The Perils of Pauline, The Ghost Breakers) borrow some backstory from Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone—the diamond has been stolen from the temple of an idol. The cast of the modern story also appears in the flashback episodes. Karloff is the High Priest of Sita, Darmond is the virginal maiden, Chesebro is the French adventurer, etc.

When we move forward, the modern story takes us to a shipwreck so the writers can liberate some plot details from Treasure Island.

Karloff’s performance is easily the best in the film. While others are gesticulating wildly and mugging for the camera, Karloff plays it realistically, using subtle gestures and letting his eyes convey his thoughts. He was only 5’ 11”, but his turban and ramrod straight posture make him seem to tower over the rest of the cast. He was only 33 years old at the time of filming and the best looking one on screen. For all his red-herringness, Dakar turns out to be the hero of the picture.

Directed by Stuart Paton, who, if he’s remembered at all it would be for the 1916 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, adds little to cinema history except his extreme close-ups of Atherton’s eyes as he forces Mary to do his bidding, shots that foreshadow similar close-ups of Bela Lugosi’s eyes in Dracula, White Zombie, and others.

The Hope Diamond Mystery was shot on the Universal lot. The "Temple of Sita," set reputedly cost $100,000 to build, surely the serial’s most expensive element.