User Reviews

"Death On The Diamond" revolves around the world of professional baseball, and contains extensive baseball footage. I myself am no follower of this sport, but I still enjoyed the film. A lot of the credit should go to the director, Edward Sedgwick, and the editor, Frank Sullivan: quick cutting and frequent changing of camera angles give this film a fairly fast pace and help it belie its age. The casting is also very good: each actor fits the type of the character he's playing. And then there's the unjustly forgotten Madge Evans, one of my favorite actresses from that era: she is so sweet and lovely, I could watch her smile all day long. And if you want to bet on who the (serial) killer may be, the odds are against you! **1/2 out of 4.

This film has a lot going for it. It is a sports mystery with a fabulous cast (there are cameos by Ward Bond, Walter Brennan, and Mickey Rooney). It has great chemistry between Young and Evans as the leads and Pendleton and Healy in comedic relief. Finally, it has (with two exceptions) fine acting and a good pace.

Sure there are flaws. When the murderer talks early in the picture, more of his motivation could and should have been provided. That would have shortened the film's resolution, and reduced much of the histrionics others have noted. Also, in the locker room, the panning camera cheats when the poisoned player looks for his killer by not including the murderer—we are simply informed of his reactions later. Still, neither of these annoying things, by themselves, spoils the picture.

Unfortunately, however, they're not all the bad news. There is a third glitch, and it completely destroys the mystery. It proves the murder couldn't have committed one of the killings. To wit: at the top of the stands, we are shown an umpire treating his player friend to a hot dog after one game. But suddenly everyone is distracted by loud bangs from below. A black-shirted arm reaches around the stand to substitute poisoned mustard for the regular stuff, and three seconds later (by my watch) we see two umpires and the murderer (now clad in a white outfit) examining firecrackers down on the diamond. Now considering the field is at least one hundred yards away by any route the perp could have taken, he clearly couldn't have committed that particular crime.

Since the director and editor made films for a living, it's hard for me to comprehend how they could have overlooked such an egregious error. Still, they obviously did. But there is an easy solution. Just re-shoot the brief field close-up. Put two period-costumed umpires (with no murderer) by a home plate on some field. Film them picking-up and examining some firecrackers. Then cut the new footage in. Voila! The film is saved; the mystery works, and the DVD can be released.

I had relatively low expectations. After all, it is clearly a B-movie about baseball and despite starring Robert Young, he was not yet a top star and the film had all the earmarks of a cheap time-passer. Imagine my surprise when the film actually turned out to be a pretty good little murder mystery as well as possibly some of the inspiration for the Robert Redford film "The Natural"! There seem to be too many similarities between the two films for it to just be a coincidence.

The film begins with the hard-luck St. Louis Cardinals at Spring training. While the Coach claims he's optimistic, he isn't. His only prayer is a rookie (Young). However, despite Young's amazing success, gamblers try to make it hard for him--offering him bribes and encouraging him to be in on the fix. This is a serious problem--not just for the team, but for the Coach who is has agreed to sell off his interest in the team IF they don't win the pennant. So far, all of this sounds almost exactly like "The Natural". What makes it different, however, begins about midway through the film. Suddenly, players start dying--someone is so determined to hurt the Cardinals that they are murdering players. After a while, the bodies really start to stack up and still they have no idea who is behind all this. And, when it comes to this aspect of the story, the film does a great job of throwing in a few surprises--as the ending certainly caught me off guard. Overall, a very interesting B-movie--well-written and full of nice twists and turns.

Just watched this for the first time, after recording it a few days ago off TCM. I figured a murder mystery involving baseball was something I had to watch since I have enjoyed both murder mysteries and baseball almost all my life.

Expecting a straight drama, I was surprised how much of the film was devoted to humor, particularly between the catcher and the umpire. Robert Young was Jim Anderson and Marcus Welby to me as I grew up--having seen him in many roles in old films, I think he is one of the most underrated actors of the 20th Century. He handled a wide variety of roles and the did them all quite well.

It is certainly true that some of the ways the murders were committed were rather far-fetched. I'll say it's also true that they handled most of the baseball action scenes better than many other films did. Young, in his closeups, looked believable as a pitcher to me. They mixed in real baseball footage to make the baseball scenes realistic enough.

Because they had much focus on the baseball scenes, and the romantic angle, they didn't have enough time for the typical detective movie where we see clues point to different suspects. Instead, we basically were pointed toward numerous people, mostly because they were in the vicinity of the activity. But since this was a light-hearted murder mystery, I don't think this ruined the film.

I think it equates with a Matlock or Diagnosis Murder where we follow the star around as everything happens around, and we can guess at who committed the murders, but we never have any real clues until the very end. Frequently on those two TV series, we didn't really have clues to the killer, just a group of suspects to makes guesses about.

The big difference here is, after the killer is caught, there's still the mystery of whether or not the Cardinals can clinch the pennant.

It was a fun movie to see. It would be a mistake to get bogged down in details of how this or that seems unbelievable. While I caught Mickey Rooney and Ward Bond, Walter Brennan's short role slipped past me.

(there are Spoilers) Unusual murder mystery involving the National League St Louis Cardinels baseball team who's star player seem to be targeted by an unseen assassin in order to keep the team from winning the league pennant.

It's when Cardinel owner manager Pop Clark, David Landau, bought Texas League pitching ace Larry Kelly, Robert Young, for a cool $25,000 that the team started to move up the ladder from the cellar to first place. With the St.Louis mobsters headed by big boss Joe Karnes, Henry C. Gordon, betting heavily against the Cardinels to win he pennant they try to get Kelly to throw an important game against the Cincinnati Reds by leaving an envelope of $10,000.00 in his hotel room. To prove that he's not involved with the Karnes Mob Kelly not only beats the Reds but pitches a no-hitter against them!

With Kelly not going alone with the mob he's later injured when the taxi he's in has it's tire blown out, with a high-powered rifle, causing it to overturn and Kelly put out action for two weeks. With the Cardinals still holding on to first place despite their star pitcher Larry Kelly being on the disabled list three of the top Cardinels players end up dead, with their deaths taking place in the ballpark, under the most suspicious circumstances: Gunshot strangulation and poisoning.

***SPOILERS*** With the pennant now just a game away the Cardinals bring in Kelly to pitch the final game of the season also against the Reds more to get the killer out in the open, with Kelly as bait, then to win the game! In fact it's Kelly himself who catches the killer, while on the mound, by bopping him on the head with a fastball as he tried to sneak a time-bomb into his warm-up jacket! It's then that the real deal or truth comes out to who this assassin is and even more important whom he's working for! ***MAJOR SPOILER*** The person who's been trying to get the team off Joe Clarks hands since spring training by keeping it in last place in order for Joe to be forced to hand it over to him.

P.S Over the top and hysterical final sequence by the killer when he's finally exposed and captured by the police and Cardinel players. This guy gave the performance of his life that should have easily earned him hands down the Academy Award for best actor in 1934 over Cark Gable's performance in the movie "It Happened One Night"! Even though he was in the film "Death on the Diamond" in a supporting role!

. . . DEATH ON THE DIAMOND virtually gives viewers a play-by-play of this sport's upcoming Bud Selig Era. As "'Roid Rage" claims the lives of more and more former hopped-up Real Life "stars," one cannot help but see the handwriting on the wall for all of this prospective carnage as the St. Louis Cardinal's top slugger John "Truck" Hogan succumbs to a similar fatal poisoning minutes after a Red Birds victory toward the end of DEATH ON THE DIAMOND. (Selig still backs Lance Armstrong's candidacy for the Bicycling Hall of Fame!) Furthermore, when a sniper guns down the Card's Duncan Spencer as he's rounding third with the tying run (and two out in the bottom of the Ninth) during a pivotal contest and the Commissioner callously saddles the home team with a devastating defeat because dead men cannot score, what does this remind you of? Right, it's perfectly analogous with Selig viciously ordering the 2001 baseball season to resume as if nothing happened while 9-11 victims were still roasting at Ground Zero in New York City solely to enable Racist Cheater Big Head Bonds to continue bad-mouthing the Nelson Mandela of Baseball--New York's George Herman "Babe" Ruth--while making a mockery of the sport's most hallowed standards!

Robert Young (Larry Kelly), Madge Evans (Frances Clark), Nat Pendleton (Truck Hogan), Ted Healy (Crawfish O'Toole), Paul Kelly (Jimmie Downey), C. Henry Gordon (Joe Karnes), David Landau (Pop Clark), DeWitt Jennings (Patterson, groundskeeper), Edward Brophy (Sergeant Grogan), Willard Robertson (Lieutenant Cato), Joe Sawyer (Dunk Spencer), Mickey Rooney (Mickey), Robert Livingston (Higgie Higgins), Ward Bond (police guard), Walter Brennan, Heinie Conklin, Max Wagner (hot dog vendors), Howard C. Hickman (Dr Cushman), Al Hill (Moore, a Cardinal player), Hector Sarno (barber), Harry Semels (man in barber's chair), Gertrude Short (importunate player's wife), Fred Toones (porter), Charles Sullivan (taxi-driver), Allen Wood (newsboy), Billy Watson (boy), Bobby Watson, Dennis O'Keefe, Sherry Hall, Brooks Benedict (baseball announcers), Garry Owen (news flash announcer), Bruce Bennett, Don Brodie, Sumner Getchell, Jack Raymond, Kane Richmond (men in ticket line), David Thursby (Burke, an ex-player), Larry Steers, Wilbur Mack (gamblers), Sam Rice (a Karnes henchman), Eddie Phillips (man in broadcasting booth), Jack Norton (a Karnes associate), Pat O'Malley (cashier), James C. Morton (husband), Ray Mayer (Sugar Kane, a player), Bert Lindley (policeman), Marc Lawrence (doorman), Alice Lake (Lucy Warman), Ralph Bushman (Sam Warman), Baldwin Cooke (Cardinal player), Jules Cowles (hayseed in car), James Ellison (Sherman, pitcher for Cincinnati), Jim Farley (policeman at St Louis game), Pat Flaherty (Pat, the coach), Franklyn Farnum (fan), Sam Flint (baseball commissioner), Francis X. Bushman, junior (Sam Briscoe, the pitcher), John Hyams (Henry Ainsley), Fred Graham (baseball double for Nat Pendleton), and Leslie Goodwins, William Griffith, Julie Bescos, Frank Layton, Albert Richman, and the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago Cubs, and the St Louis Cardinals.

Director: EDWARD SEDGWICK. Screenplay: Harvey Thew & Joe Sherman and Ralph Spence. Based on the 1934 novel by Cortland Fitzsimmons. Photography: Milton Krasner. Film editor: Frank Sullivan. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons and David Townsend. Music: William Axt. Song, "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" by Albert Von Tilzer (music) and Jack Norworth (lyrics). 2nd unit directors: John Waters, Edward Woehler. 2nd unit camera operators: Ray Binger, Leonard Smith. Technical advisers: Pat Flaherty, Fred Graham. Sound supervisor: Douglas Shearer. Sound mixer: G.A. Burns. Western Electric Sound Recording. Producer: Lucien Hubbard.

Copyright 11 September 1934 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation. New York opening at the Capitol: 22 September 1934. U.K. release: 22 December 1934. Australian release: 20 March 1935. 7 reels. 69 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Someone is out to prevent the St Louis Cardinals from winning the pennant, and this desperate fiend doesn't stop at murder. The finger firmly points to gambling czar Joe Karnes, who stands to lose a million dollars if St Louis wins. A less obvious suspect is Henry Ainsely, who stands to inherit the Cardinals if they lose.

COMMENT: This big "B" holds a well-deserved reputation amongst both baseball freaks and film fans. True, a lot of the location material is a bit fuzzy, but that's baseball. The movie itself is great. Not only does the script strike a startling balance amongst the various elements of romance, mystery, comedy, sport and suspense, it's not afraid to spring a few surprises that will have most audiences riveted to their seats.

With lines as pithy as these to say and characters of such enthralling realism to play, the actors have a field day. Young (replacing Franchot Tone who was originally announced for the role) is both superbly personable and utterly convincing as a star pitcher. Madge Evans, one of my favorite stars, makes (as usual) a delightfully pert heroine.

David Landau gives the performance of his life as the harried St Louis manager, while Paul Kelly is likewise ideally cast as the nosy reporter. But the big surprise lies in the joint efforts of Nat Pendleton and Ted Healy. These stalwart players pool their collective comic expertise to make a dazzling tit-for-tat duo, with both displaying dramatic talents well above the call of duty.

Also, I'd give special pats on the back to DeWitt Jennings as the affable groundsman and delightfully aggressive Joe Sawyer as Young's rival. In fact, the whole cast — just look at it! — is something really special.

Aside from the fuzzy 2nd unit and process work, technical credits are A-1, whilst production values (by "B" standards) are absolutely staggering.