Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 28 October 1932
“Black Diamonds.”
For the first time in the district since its sensational success in London, “Black Diamonds,” Mr. Charles Hanmer’s worthy attempt to bring the film-making industry to South Yorkshire, will be shown at the Barnsley Alhambra during this week-end. And “Black Diamonds” is a film of definite appeal to all patrons, indeed to all South Yorkshiremen.
It is their own province at work and at play, in comedy and in tragedy, in festive mood and in distress, with the ever intimate touch. A film of the miner, for the miner, and by the miner—that’s “Black Diamonds.”
And a true to life picture enhanced by its sincerity, made into a film that will essentially be hailed as epic. It is a tribute to the profession: the underground scenes have been faithfully reproduced, the action is true to life, and especially at the point when the trained, rescue workers spring to action to the grim call of the warning hooter and maroon at Cadeby in 1912. This alone gives the film an authenticity of its own.
But it has succeeded in its major object, to put the mineworker of South Yorkshire into the film dimension. One critic has said, “Mr. Chas. Hanmer, of Goldthorpe, South Yorkshireman, has added to the good things that have come out of this begrimed coalfield of ours, a film that should be shown at every cinema.”
And you can see it for yourselves for the first time in the district at the Alhambra during this week-end. Every convenience attends patrons; ‘buses will leave the theatre for all districts after the show. This is a chance not to be missed—a film essentially of South Yorkshire.