Now or Never

Richard Talmadge is passing through town, where he is mistaken for a local fence, also played by Richard Talmadge. That fence has just gotten some diamonds to unload. The crooks who stole them don't trust him to leave town. So he arranges with Talmadge to carry fakes and distract the other crooks while he heads elsewhere to unload them.

It's a nice idea for a movie, and Talmadge does his usual assortment of stunts, mostly jumping while other actors clamber. Unfortunately, it's directed by Bernard Ray, which means the dialogue proceeds as if each line has no relationship to the one before or after, shots are held too long, and editor Fred Bain can't even cut a chase sequence decently.

Talmadge's starring career would not survive the following year, but he had a fine career ahead of him. He had entered the movies as a stuntman for Douglas Fairbanks. After the acting roles disappeared, he returned to stuntwork and second unit direction through the middle of the 1960s. He died in 1981 at the age of 88.