Success

Elmer (Jack Haley) is in love with Molly and wants to marry her. So, he wants to impress her father--a man obsessed with baseball. But he agrees to play in a ballgame when he really shouldn't. His eyes are bad and he really, really needs new glasses and ends up playing the game like a blind man.

While the not being able to see gimmick is a bit overdone (and hard to believe), the film does work because the writing (aside from that plot device) is good and the characters likable. And, if you do watch, look for Phil Silvers in an early role...one where he STILL has a full head of hair. And, the familiar character actor John Hamilton (Perry White from "The Adventures of Superman") looks unusual with dark hair and not his usual silver hair. Finally, I was surprised that radio (and occasional movie) comedian Fred Allen actually wrote this script!

Jack Haley wants to marry Helen Lynd, but her father, John Hamilton, insists she marry a baseball player. So Haley, who is blind as a bat, must win a baseball game in this Vitaphone short.

Haley was a capable song-and-dance man, but his persona in this period was the low-energy, mild-mannered milquetoast and would remain that way throughout the 1930s. It must have amused some people, and paired with a blow-hard comic like Jack Oakie, as he frequently would be, it makes a potentially interesting contrast. However, even the emphatic assertions of John Hamilton (whom I remember fondly as Perry White to George Reeves' Superman) never offer anything more than a potted skit.