Page Six is reporting that Warner Bros. promised prosthetic limbs to extras in its movie Blood Diamond, but never came through.

Extra Nkululo Mnisi told the N.Y. Post column that after filming had ended and the limbs never came, they were allegedly told, "You will have to wait for December, when the movie comes out, so we can get some publicity out of it."

Way to go, Warner Bros. That statement just makes me glow from the warmth of human kindness.

This is one of those rare cases where I am actually hoping I should not believe what I read.

Otherwise, I just cannot even begin to express my disgust. It’s sincerely bad enough that every time some celebrities write a check to a charity, they also write a press release so the world can fawn over their so-called generosity, but to make a promise like this and not understand what a few months or weeks can mean to someone — especially a child — waiting to learn how to run on prosthetic legs or color in a picture with a prosthetic hand … it turns my stomach in the worst sort of way and seems almost as cruel as the tribal warfare that took the limbs from the extras in the first place.

In an interview with NPR, director David Zwick said:

"A purchase of a diamond just has to be an informed purchase. I think after seeing this movie, people will feel it incumbent upon themselves to ask for a warranty, so as to guarantee the diamond they’re buying is not from a conflict zone."

According to this site, one amputee was given a prosthetic limb, but through money raised separately by the film crew, not by Warner Bros. The site also reports that the amputees were paid far below the standard minimum because of the promised prosthetics.

A story reprinted here seems to confirm the limbs won’t be ready until December, but why? What purpose — aside from the grossly exploitive publicity for the movie’s release — is possibly being served by making the amputees wait? Especially when they’ve been paid so little.

Warner Bros. can pay $160 million on this film but has to wait until the film’s release to exercise its own charity?

I am sure Blood Diamond will do a great deal to raise people’s consciousness about where they get their jewelry — for probably all of the time it takes to walk from the theater exit to their car.

Call me cynical, but if the Page Six item turns out to be true, I will find it incumbent on myself to miss that movie. I am not a bling girl anyway, so my consciousness is limited to making sure I don’t support multimillion-dollar studio execs messing with people who have had enough tragedy in their lives already.