Off His Base

"Off His Base" is a short from Educational Pictures that is mostly worth seeing for its unusual cast. James Gleason's wife, Lucille, and son, Russell, star in this short and Baby Peggy and Jim Thorpe also make appearances!

The short plays more like a film....just very condensed. It begins with the Mustangs in trouble in their championship series...all the players are banged up and they're being clobbered. But a sports reporter (Eugene Pallette) insists that his nephew, Minor, can really play ball and will help the team win.

The film is completely unpredictable and doesn't follow the usual formula. And, as I mentioned above, the cast is most unusual. But it's also hampered by Russell Gleason's complete lack of charisma and his inability to hold a baseball bat correctly...and since the film is about him, it's a pretty big handicap. Worth seeing, but it could have been better with a better leading man.

It's the first of three shorts that James, Lucille, and Russell Gleason starred in for Educational Pictures in 1932, with Eugene Pallette as Lucille's blowhard brother. In this one, they have the crazy idea that Russell should be a baseball star. Things don't turn out well under the direction of James Gleason.

I blame a poor script, as well as Russell's apparently never having heard of baseball before this short. The four professionals are quite amusing as characters. It's the lack of a decent script that wrecks this one.

Olympics star Jim Thorpe has a role here.