User Reviews

COLUMBIA PICTURES CORPORATION presents "KILL THE UMPIRE", Starring William Bendix, with: Una Merkel, Ray Collins,Gloria Henry, Jeff Richards,Connie Marshall, William Frawley, Tom D'Andrea,Luther Crockett, Jeff York,Alan Hale, Jr., Jim Bannon,Vernon Dickerson, Vernon Dent,Stanley Blystone, Emory Parnell,Matt McHugh, Myron Healey,Dick Wessel, Donald Kerr,Henry Kulky,Emil Sitka.....etc., etc., etc.,....................Writer Fank Taslin, Director Lloyd Bacon

It appears that this Post World War II Era was a great time for the Family Comedy, family fare that is. As a good couple of examples, we offer Red Skelton in THE FULLER BRUSH MAN(1948), ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN(1949), THE GOOD HUMOR MAN (1950) with Jack Carson and our examinee for today, William Bendix in KILL THE UMPIRE(1950).

The storyline is very elementary,even predictable. But it all works very well. So......

Former Baseball Player turned Baseball Fanatic,Bill Johnson (Mr. Bendix), is constantly getting into trouble, bringing discredit on his family and continually looses jobs because of his Baseball Fanaticism.His long suffering Wife, Betty (Una Merkel)and Daughters(Gloria Henry & Connie Marshall)are at wits end over the problem, when Mrs. Johnson's Father,Jonah Evans(Ray Collins)offers to pay Bill's way if he will enter a school for Umpires, and learns of how the Umps are indispensable for Baseball to prosper.

Thw laughs they are a plentiful and we get plenty of giggles, chortles, guffaws, belly laughs and knee slappers when Bill attempts to purposely goof-up so as to get himself expelled.

Eventually he sees the light due to a group of kids playing a sand-lot pick-up game. He then does a 180 degree turn after his peers at the school vote to okay his re-reinstatement. He succeeds as an Umpire, with the Major Leagues interested in their futures.

The scenario calls for Mr. Bendix to get laughs from us in just about every different way possible. And he mostly succeeds in doing so. We found his very simple switching around the proper signals in a drill to be particularly amusing. As his whole class of fledgling Umpires are yelling "You're Out! Safe!" and giving proper arm indicators, he enthusiastically yells the right vocals with the opposite arm signals. Sounds a little simplistic here, I'll admit, but it works very well, honest!

Another observation that is a sort of side bar to the whole thing is that this was just about the time that William Bendix was starting his long favourite Radio Comedy,"THE LIFE OF RILEY" to an equally successful run on Television.* It is curious that so many of the regulars from that series are in the cast of KILL THE UMPIRE.

To begin with Tom D'Andrea, his school room mate at the Umpires' School would portray Riley's best friend and neighbor, Gillis. The 1st Home Plate Umpire we see is Emory Parnell, the future Foreman Hank Hawkins at the Cunningham Aircraft Plant on the RILEY Show. Lastly, powerfully built Pro Wrestler, Henry Kulky, appears as a rowdy fan in a Texas League Game, and was later to portray Riley's neighbor, Otto Schmedlapp.

All we can say is, "What Another Revoltin' Development This Is!"**

NOTE: * There was a season of "THE LIFE OF RILEY" done on Television prior to this. However it had, not Mr. Bendix, but rather the "And Away We Go!" Guy(Himself), Jackie Gleason.

NOTE ** Bendix, as Chester A. Riley, had that ever so famous tag-line of,"What A Revoltin' Development This Is!" Just trying to draw a parallel! THANX, JTR.

This is a wonderful, wonderful…feel good movie! People with only a passing knowledge of baseball will enjoy it. You don't have to be a sport fanatic to sit there and laugh and chuckle the whole movie. William Bendix was perfect for this part. I saw it somewhere, probably on TV as a kid, many years ago and I have never forgotten it. Then I was fortunate enough to stumble across a VHS tape of it at a flea market. I snatched it up as if it was a just discovered pirate chest – it is a real treasure! As is usual for me, I am going to write about some of the actors below, as I am always interested in the history of the people making a movie. The basic story follows William Bendix as he loses one job after another because he can't stay away from the baseball park when he should be at work. He has two kids, a younger daughter (Connie Marshall) and an older one (Glory Henry) who is practically engaged to a young professional baseball player (Jeff Richards as Richard Taylor). Bendix's wife (Una Merkel) has finally had it with the job loses and is ready to pack her bags and leave. But her father is visiting (he's a newly retired umpire) and he has an idea (he is also very understanding of Bendix's fascination with baseball). His idea is to send his son in law to umpire school run by a friend of his (William Frawley). Bendix's name in the movie is Bill Johnson and he goes to umpire school under protest because he hates umpires. At school, he causes many funny problems trying to be thrown out so that he can tell his wife that at least he tried. He makes friends with Tom D'Andrea as Roscoe Snooker who is also a student at the school. Snooker has eye problems and takes drops for them. On graduation day, Bill Johnson's eyes are bothering him for the graduation games where there are scouts from the leagues looking to hire the best umpires. Snooker tells Johnson to use his eye drops from the medicine cabinet but Johnson picks up the wrong bottle and ends up seeing double. During the game, he calls every ball, strike and play twice because he sees everything twice. The scouts like this unusual style of making every call twice and Bill is hired as "Two Call Johnson" (along with Snooker) to the Texas league. They go on the circuit and the fun continues with comedy skits. OK, I won't give away any more or spoil the ending for you. It is funny as all get-out! If you have more time, allow me to tell you some things about people in this movie. I like to check biographies to look up familiar faces or interesting connections and report them so that you don't have to do the "looking-up" yourself. The first thing I realized when I saw a fan in the stands throw a boot at Bendix was that he was on the show Life of Riley starring William Bendix. I'm fairly sure his name was Henry Kulky as Otto on the Riley show who was a professional wrestler before he acting. Then I realized that Tom D'Andrea playing Snooker, was Riley's best friend Jim Gillis on the Riley show. Things like this make me curious as to how they all ended up on the same popular TV show. William Bendix of course was always likable and was an equally brilliant actor whether in a comedy or drama. In addition to playing Chester Riley, I remember him in some war movies like Deep Six with Alan Ladd and Guadalcanal Diary. He actually was a bat-boy for the NY Giants and Yankees where he watched Babe Ruth play ball, then play the swat king in a movie later in life. In 1939 he played the cop on the beat in The Time of Your Life on Broadway and then played Nick the saloon owner when it went to film in 1948 in the story by William Saroyan (a favorite author of mine). He was nominated for an Oscar for Wake Island. Una Merkel, who played Two-Call's wife in "Kill the Umpire", had a long list of movies as well. A familiar face, you will remember her as the maid out west for Hayley Mills in "The Parent Trap", wife to Burl Ives in Summer Magic and the fight scene with Marlene Dietrich in "Destry Rides Again". Remember Two Call's father in law (Ray Collins) as the judge in Miracle on 34th Street? Gloria Henry (the older daughter) as Dennis the Menace's TV mother? Jeff Richards (her baseball player boyfriend) as one of the brothers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Younger daughter (Connie Marshall – descendant of Chief Justice John Marshall) as the daughter Betsy in "Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House"? Umpire school owner William Frawley as Bub on My Three Sons and Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy? Here's one for you. The bad guy running the gang on the train looked mighty familiar. It took some thinking, because he was much younger here and cleaned up. However, the part of Panhandle Jones was played by Jeff York who played Bud Searcy on Old Yeller and Mike Fink in Davy Crockett and finally, did you recognize the young baseball catcher near the end? Yep, Alan Hale, Jr., the Skipper himself later from Gilligan's Island who served in the US Coast Guard in WWII and had his ashes spread at sea when he died. Another fine actor to add to this movie. OK, I'll stop. But maybe this will encourage you to look up those familiar faces you see in these old movies – it's a lot of fun! Don't miss this movie if you get a chance.

On a classic episode of "I Love Lucy", the four regulars joined guest star Bob Hope for a salute to that forgotten hero, often booed, frequently villainized and completely misunderstood. Like any type of referee, he is the bad guy at the game, every little boy's nightmare when it comes to their team losing, as dirty a word back in the day as truant officer was. For baseball fanatic William Bendix, the umpire is the vampire of the game, sucking the life out of his enjoyment of it, and by an odd twist, guess what job he takes on when wife Una Merkel's push turns into shove.

With retired umpire father-in-law Ray Collins visiting after Bendix looses several jobs because of his baseball, it's only a matter of time before he's got no other choice to fall into pop- in-law's footsteps. Seeing the other side of the plate makes Bendix change his tune, although dealing with obsessive fans like himself ain't gonna give him a grand slam career. It ain't gonna be an easy ride getting through umpire training as he takes on one of the singers of "Nobody Loves the Ump", crotchety no-nonsense William Frawley.

Pleasant and fast moving, this is a must for baseball enthusiasts and those interested in the history of the game. Nothing has changed but the size of the stadiums, the player gossip and the decade. Bendix (having just played the Babe two years before) isn't quite living the life of Reilly as he feels he's betraying his favorite team, his wide eyed slow burn perfect for such a role. Merkel, always enjoyable, combines both frustration and amusement as she deals with her situation as best as she can.

The funniest scene involves Bendix, working for the phone company, drunkenly singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and infringing on people's phone calls in the funniest ways. Bendix hysterically tries to be kicked out of school in the mist creative, but unsuccessful ways, and then reacts hysterically to the fans who scream, "Kill the Umpire!" to him. The film takes a sinister turn at the end when racketeers use Bendix's hatred of umpires against him to try to get him to throw a game. This leads to a riotous chase sequence that might have you gasping for breath from laughing pains. In addition to Bendix, Merkel, Collins and Frawley, there's also Gloria Henry and Connie Marshall as his daughters, Jeff Richards as Henry's baseball playing fiancée, and Tom D'Andrea as his serious fellow student roommate.

This is the story of a man who has trouble focusing on his work every spring because he can't keep from following baseball—either at the ballpark, on TV or radio. He loves his wife and family, and never wants to neglect his work, but baseball fills his mind.

So far I am giving you a description of the beginning of Williams Bendix, as Bill Johnson in Kill the Umpire. I am also giving you what could be the beginning of my autobiography. So I fully empathize with Johnson. Johnson it seems regards umpires very lowly on the scale of evolution, even though he loves his father-in-law, Jonah Evans (played by Ray Collins, who later played Lt. Tragg on Perry Mason) a retired professional umpire. To appease his family, he agrees to Jonah's suggestion that he go to umpire school.

Una Merkel plays Bill's wife and her older daughter Lucy is played by Gloria Henry, easily recognizable as Dennis the Menace's mother, although that would be 9 years later.

Bill goes to the O'Brien Umpiring School, in Cocoa, Florida, where he does everything he can to get Jimmy O'Brien to kick him out of school, solely because of this low opinion of umpires and their profession. O'Brien is played by William Frawley. It apparently wasn't legal to make a baseball movie in those years where Bill Frawley didn't have some role.

Johnson puts on thick glasses that keep him from seeing. But O'Brien simply assigns him to room with Roscoe Snooker, (Tom D'Andrea). D'Andrea is a very familiar voice and face, but who wasn't known for any long-running role. He played key guest spots in dozens of TV series into the 1970s and is a fine actor.

There are some comical scenes with Johnson over-inflating his chest protector and floating around, and then getting his spikes stuck in the floor and having more troubles.

O'Brien puts up with Johnson doing calisthenics all wrong, including calling "Out" while giving safe signs and safe with out signs—basically, fouling up his school, but when he starts yelling at a fellow umpiring student for a "bad" call, he has seen enough and throws him out of school.

The key dramatic scene in the film occurs next. Johnson is waiting for his train back home, when he spots boys on a sandlot getting into a big fight over a call in their game. He goes over and tells them his opinion of the play (he could see from his position) and the kids say, "Hey, he should know, he's a real umpire." "Yeah, you can't have a game without an ump," and other things. He is talked into staying to umpire for them, suddenly realizing that umpires are not evil people, but necessary to having a smoothly played ballgame.

He returns to the umpiring school and the rest of the guys talk O'Brien into letting him back. On graduation day, Roscoe suggests he try some of his eye drops before the graduation game he is to umpire. But it gives him double vision—which we viewers see through some 1950-style camera trickery, seeing two pitchers, two balls, etc. Confused, Johnson calls every pitch, every play twice.

This earns him the nickname of "Two Call Johnson." It also gets the attention of the umpire scouts from the big leagues, and he gets hired to work in the minor league Texas Interstate League. He works with his roommate Roscoe all summer. He continues to call everything twice, sort of emphasizing his call, instead of a more common extending it, such as Ouuuuuuuuttttt., he would say "Out! Out!" They find the fans quick to throw things at them, booing loudly beginning with their first appearance—while the ballpark organ plays "Three Blind Mice." But they get through their first season with such flying colors they are hired to work the playoffs. They even stem off a bribery attempt on the train, although Johnson is knocked off the train and hitches a ride on an Indian's sled part of the way back.

In the first game, a runner would have been out at the plate but the catcher dropped the ball momentarily. Johnson called him safe, but nobody else saw that the ball was dropped. A riot breaks out, forcing him to forfeit the game to the visitors. With Lardneresque exaggeration, the fans are totally against Two Call Johnson now. There is a swarm of people against him in the ballpark and at the hotel, where the league president suggests he not go to the park.

But ol' Two Call makes a speech about how wrong it would be to not go, because it would make it look like he did make a bad call. With his family freshly arrived from Florida, they use a most ingenious manner (others might call it something else) to escape from the angry mob, and the small group of gamblers literally trying to kill him) and get to the ballpark. This was a rather Buster Keaton-like wild chase scene which I cannot describe on paper.

The concluding scenes contain a few funny twists in the attitudes of the Texas fans, which I also won't reveal here. I say only that this film begins and ends with a good laugh, and has plenty of them in between. Look for Gilligan's skipper, Alan Hale in a speaking role near the finish.

I think it easily among the five funniest baseball films of the black-and-white era, and because it is so rarely shown, I consider it the most underrated of them all. Rating it against all the 1930s to 1950s slapstick, farcical, comedies, I give it an 8. Bendix does such a fine job, I cannot help but think that if the script for The Babe Ruth Story had not been so flawed, he would never have been so criticized for doing a poor job in a baseball uniform.

. . . that even if you play KILL THE UMPIRE with English subtitles and copy the pertinent parts of the script down verbatim, they're too sizzling to be allowed to appear on the internet. Unfortunately, if you pick up the DVD of KILL THE UMPIRE from the 25-cent table at a yard sale and slap it into a machine for your kids to watch while you're doing something else, you may be leaving yourself in for a world of hurt. What if one of your little tykes is overheard by the playground recess monitor quoting a character from KILL THE UMPIRE? They'll surely be suspended for three days (if not permanently expelled), and you'll be on the hook for unbudgeted child care fees (not to mention the hassle of finding junior a new school to attend). American Business is based upon a Latin phrase I cannot quite remember (since I never got better than a C-plus in that language), but I think the translation is something like "Buyer beware!" Certainly, this should be the case for any responsible parent regarding KILL THE UMPIRE, regardless of whether you're buying (or getting it for free) in a DVD, streaming, or live broadcast format. At the risk of being persecuted by the Politically Correctness Cops, I owe it to those who have read this far to provide an example of the egregious nature of KILL THE UMPIRE's subversive script. Main character "Bill Johnson" tells a sandlot second baseman tyke who's just moved the bag in order to tag a runner out, "There's no place in baseball for people who aren't honest."