Batboy Mickey Death on the diamond (1934) Death on the Diamond is a 1934 mystery film starring Robert Young as a baseball player who has to figure out who is trying to murder the members of his team, the Saint Louis Cardinals. It was based on the novel Death on the Diamond: A Baseball Mystery Story by Cortland Fitzsimmons, directed by Edward Sedgwick and produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Mickey Rooney is seventh billed as the batboy, Mickey. He loved making this film as they used several real baseball players in shooting the movie. The cast also included Mickeys friend from vaudeville, Ted Healy- without his Stooges. The cast includes Robert Young, Madge Evans, Nat Pendleton, Ted Healy, Paul Kelly, Walter Brennan, David Landau, DeWitt Jennings, Edward Brophy as, Willard Robertson, Mickey Rooney as Mickey, Robert Livingston, and Joe Sawyer. Franchot Tone was first assigned to the role of Larry but was replaced by Robert Young prior to production. Motion Picture Heralds The Cutting Room noted that several oldtime ball players and the present St. Louis and Chicago National League ball clubs were cast in the film. Pat Flaherty, who plays a coach in the film, was a former New York Giants pitcher. Hollywood Reporter production charts add Jim Donlan, Jules Besco, Charles Wilson, Ben Hendricks, Fred Graham and Al Hill to the cast, but their participation in the final film has not been confirmed. In addition,Hollywood Reporter production charts list Bobs Watson as a cast member. However, the CBCS lists only Bobss lookalike brother Billy as a bit player. According to an June 18, 1934 Hollywood Reporter news item, John Waters, an M-G-M special unit director, went to St. Louis to make baseball diamond and grandstand background shots for this film and another unspecified production. Waters was accompanied by cameraman Ray Binger, who was met by Leonard Smith, another M-G-M photographer. At the start of spring training, major league baseball manager and owner Pop Clark brings Larry Kelly, a highly promising young pitcher from the Texas league, to his struggling St. Louis Cardinal team. After chasing off two former players who were kicked off the team for gambling, Pop confides in his daughter Frances, the teams secretary, that if the Cardinals fail to win the pennant, he will lose the franchise to greedy business rival Henry Ainsley. That night, Larry is befriended by the wealthy Joseph Karnes, but is advised by veteran sports reporter Jimmie Downey that Karnes is a notorious gambler. After Mickey, the ballboy, discovers two men tampering with the pitchers mitts, the team physician announces that the mitts had been covered with a serious skin-damaging substance. Slugger Dunk Spencer, who, like Jimmie, is infatuated with Frances, accuses Jimmie of sabotaging the mitts as a means of reducing his competition. Frances, however, dismisses Spencers claims and forces the two men to bury their hostilities for the sake of the team. Although the Cardinals are given only twenty-to-one odds to win the pennant, they quickly climb to second place behind Larrys pitching and Spencers hitting. Worried that he will lose one million dollars, Karnes, who bet against the Cardinals, tries to bribe Larry by leaving $10,000 on his hotel pillow. Larry, however, shows Pop and Jimmie the money, and the bribe attempt is made public. Later, a taxi carrying Larry and his hotdog-loving teammate, Truck Hogan, is shot at and crashes. In the accident, Larry suffers a foot injury that forces him out of the game for two weeks. While Larry is recuperating, the Cardinals move into first place and need to win only two out of three games to clinch the pennant. During the first crucial game in Chicago, Spencer is shot and killed by a gunman in the stadium as he is about to score the winning run. Because of his rivalry with Spencer, Jimmie is questioned by the police but is not charged. Just before the second game, pitcher Frank Higgins is called to the telephone and, in spite of tight security overseen by groundskeeper and former Cardinal player Patterson, is strangled in the locker room. After Truck leads the Cardinals to victory, one of his hotdogs is laced with poison, and he dies before identifying the killer to police. Although the police want to cancel the last game with the Cincinnati Reds, Pop insists on playing and slates Larry to pitch. When Frances confesses to Pop that she loves Larry, Pop starts to pull him from the lineup but is persuaded by Jimmie, who wants to trap the murderer, to keep his star in the game. During the game, Larry sees someone in the dugout placing an explosive in his warm-up jacket and hurls his baseball at the saboteurs head. After the explosive is safely detonated, the killer is revealed to be Patterson, whose anger at being hired by Pop as a groundskeeper instead of a coach, drove him to conspire with Ainsley to ruin the Cardinals. The mystery solved, Larry slugs the game-winning hit and embraces Frances, his bride-to-be.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 12:25:53 +0000
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