A losing baseball team starts losing its players to strange killings, and the team's new pitcher takes a swing at finding the killer.A losing baseball team starts losing its players to strange killings, and the team's new pitcher takes a swing at finding the killer.A losing baseball team starts losing its players to strange killings, and the team's new pitcher takes a swing at finding the killer.
Joe Sawyer
- 'Dunk' Spencer
- (as Joe Sauers)
Ernie Alexander
- Dick
- (uncredited)
Brooks Benedict
- Game Radio Announcer
- (uncredited)
Bruce Bennett
- Man on Ticket Line
- (uncredited)
Red Berger
- Baseball player
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFred Graham was working in the MGM sound department and also playing baseball semi-professionally in his off-time. He was hired to tutor star Robert Young in baseball techniques. He also was hired to double Nat Pendleton in his scenes as a catcher, thereby beginning a nearly 40-year career as an actor and stuntman.
- GoofsWhen the game resumes, after the bad guy is caught, the camera pans across the scoreboard to show that the game is tied, 2-2. The radio announcer then states, "Cincinnati hasn't scored since Kelly threw that ball into the dugout and let the tying run come in." Cincinnati was the visiting team and the last run it scored, in the top of the second inning, would have made the score 2-1 (Cincinnati leading). It would not have been a tying run.
- SoundtracksTake Me Out to the Ball Game
(1908) (uncredited)
Music by Albert von Tilzer
Lyrics by Jack Norworth
Played during the opening and closing credits
Played as background music often
Featured review
Interesting for its authentic locations, even with implausibilities
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.
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.
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- King of the Diamond
- Filming locations
- St. Louis, Missouri, USA(baseball diamond and grandstand backgrounds)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 11 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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