Death on the Diamond

Seeing that this film was released in September of 1934 when in real life the St. Louis Cardinals were in a tight pennant race with the New York Giants, it's a wonder that this film didn't give some miscreant the idea of doing in the Dean brothers who were to lead the famous Gashouse Gang to the National League pennant and World Series that year.

The Cardinals are in desperate financial straights this year as owner/manager David Landau and daughter Madge Evans put the team in hock to get star pitcher Robert Young. Madge has a thing for Bob, but other players have a thing for Madge.

In the meantime the rejuvenated Cardinals are screwing up all kinds of gambling interests who don't want to see the long-shot Cardinals win the pennant. They'll stop at nothing including murder to see the Redbirds of St. Louis don't triumph. Murders of three players do occur before the culprit is found.

Nat Pendleton and Ted Healy provide the comic relief as a perpetually quarreling catcher and umpire. Someone did some research for this film or was a fan because legendary umpire Bill Klem who was still active in 1934 had an unbelievable aversion to the name of 'Catfish'. In Healy's case Pendleton calls him 'Crawfish' to get his goat.

Some establishing shots will give you a look at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis which is long gone now. Otherwise the cast MGM put together for this film shot it in and around Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, the minor league park of the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League which also now history.

The ending of the film is the very least bizarre. Nearly the entire cast is suspect at one point, but the guilty party in this baseball mystery comes right out of left field. No, the left fielder didn't do it.

Paul Kelly has a very good role as a sportswriter with a nose for news that serves him well, the scoops he does get in this film.

I might have liked the film better had the ending which I can't reveal been so bizarre. It did give one player an opportunity for a grand piece of scenery chewing.

This is an OK film. If you have 70 minutes to kill, this isn't something you'll regret killing them with, but it won't stick with you years later.

The film centers on a series of bizarre murders of top players on a losing St. Louis baseball team. The owner (David Landau as Pop Clark) has mortgaged everything to recruit pitcher Larry (Robert Young). If the season is bad he loses everything to his creditors. There is "the obvious suspect" in one particular gangster and gambler who seems unhappy about the improving stats of the St. Louis team with Larry on the mound, but that's the point. He seems just a little too obvious.

The first criminal thing to happen is that a tire on the car that Larry is riding in being shot out. The car rolls over and Larry could have been killed, but he's not, and that doesn't seem to have been the intention. There are clearly at least two people involved in this first shooting, but they are anonymous. All of the crimes that follow are actually murders or attempted murders and very un-gangland like - poison being substituted for mustard, a player being strangled with the murderer's bare hands, etc. So, Larry, now recovered, is the team's only hope of winning the pennant. Will he play or will he stay safe? Watch and find out.

This film is noteworthy for several reasons. For one, it really is a mystery as to who is doing all of this, as the gangland gambler is the only obvious suspect, and keeps the film interesting. It also gives David Landau, who played so many villains, a chance to play a good but crusty fellow for a change. Paul Kelly as a newspaperman who is investigating the murders as much as he is covering the team by the time the film is over is always a welcome sight with his likable wise-guy persona. The police are certainly messing up this investigation, so it is good to have Kelly on the case.

And now the not so good stuff. The romance between Pop's daughter (Madge Evans) and Larry falls flat as a pancake. There is zero chemistry there - Gable and Harlow these two are not. They were both good supporting players, but until Robert Young took on his TV roles when he was older, I just never thought much of him as a leading man, particularly over at MGM. Then there is Ted Healy. He is just not funny. When he cut the Three Stooges loose it was the best thing that could have happened to them.

I'd still recommend it for the murder mystery.

There's an inherent danger in any movie director taking on a sports movie, and it's this: Very few directors know anything at all about the sport they're depicting, while the viewers they're courting know EVERYTHING about it.

That being a given, I am very impressed that this movie --- remember, it was made only a few years after talkies appeared --- has actual locations shots at L. A.'s Wrigley Field, Cincinnati's Crosley Field, and many actual MLB scenes at St. Louis's Sportsmans Park (Busch Stadium #1). That baseball shrine in north St. Louis was my Holy Grail as a boy.

Like a cop watching a crime movie and slapping his forehead going "That would never happen in real life", any true baseball fan will have his face-plant moments watching this --- like very early on when the put-upon umpire keeps pronouncing his title as "empire" --- but give it a chance. It's surprisingly authentic, and topical, with today's sports gambling clearly out of control, and MLB hanging its integrity from a Sword of Damocles human hair, making this 1934 movie a prescient parable of where pro sports' Faustian deal with gambling is certain to lead.

There's one gaffe so huge you could steer Elon Musk's ego through it: What should be the movie's most suspenseful scene, the denouement, instead is laugh-out-loud funny, in part due to a very poor choice of sound effect.

It was made not to be an Oscar nominee or Ebert's Great Movies entry, but just to be the final in a triplex at the corner movie theater, keeping summertime moviegoers buying popcorn and soda back when baseball was the national sport.

Set your expectations accordingly and you might enjoy it, especially when a baserunner is gunned down trying to score.

As a mystery, Death on the Diamond contains all of the genre trappings to keep you guessing until the end. Nearly half of the cast is set up as "red herrings" and if the unmasking of the real killer is something of a disappointment, it really doesn't matter. The real reason to watch this curio is its cast. Robert Young, one of Hollywood's most underrated leading men, is fine as the cocky star pitcher; his opening scene with Madge Bellamy, who is equally good, crackles with snappy dialogue. Nat Pendleton, as a beefy slugger, and Ted Healy, as a touchy umpire, make a fine comic duo. [Healy's reaction to his pal's untimely demise is surprisingly touching.] And look fast for Walter Brennan as a hot dog vendor and Ward Bond as a cop. The film is rife with an atmosphere of golden age baseball, which helps elevate an average mystery into something imminently watchable.

Someone's trying to keep St. Louis's baseball team from winning the pennant by killing off the players!

No wonder this antique rarely if ever showed up on a Late Show. As a whodunit, the movie generates little suspense as a multitude of characters drift in and out of the meandering scenes. In fact, the plot with a shadowy character shooting players during the game is pretty contrived.

Then too, the occasional poorly done process shots, usually backgrounding Larry (Young), keep reminding you that this is after all only a movie. The badinage between umpire O'Toole (I think) and player Hogan about the former's eyesight gets tiresome even if it does turn poignant in the end. Then too, I don't know where director Sedgwick was during the confession scene, but as others point out, it has to be seen to be believed.

On the other hand, Young does a reasonable job emulating a big league pitcher and is his usual engaging self, while Evans (Frances) and Kelly (reporter Jimmie) outshine the third-rate material. As an old Cardinal fan from the days of Musial and Schoendienst, I did enjoy seeing shots of old Sportsman's Park packed to the rafters. Nonetheless, the movie just doesn't cut it, and not because of its creaky age.