Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

. . . 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!

Death on the Diamond (1934)The title and plot sound serious but this is a corny, lighthearted spin on murder and racketeering in America's pastime. And leading man Robert Young plays it so breezy you can't quite take his pitching, or his romancing, seriously.Which is all intentional, no doubt. This is purely entertainment, and in the style of a B-movie at the time, along the lines of many of the murder mystery series that were so popular. The acting and the plots are functional, and fun enough to work, and there is one main hook to keep you interested. Or at least me interested in this one. I knew after ten minutes the movie had no real merit, but I watched it anyway, just to see how they handled the idea.The idea is sensational: a famously bad baseball team (the St. Louis Cardinals) is surprisingly good thanks to their new sensational pitcher. So a notorious gambler is going to lose big money, and an aggressive businessman is going to fail to buy the team at the end of the season. But only if, in fact, the Cardinals continue to win. So key players start to die. Yes, they are murdered in all kinds of ways. It's a terrifying idea, and I suppose feasible even if preposterous, and you do wonder what the league, and the players, and the fans, and the cops would do.Well, it is all handled rather lightly. The show must go on, and baseball must be played. Even as bodies are found in the middle of a game, there is no sense that murder trumps nine innings of play, and you really do have to roll your eyes. And then the characters go along with it, too, showing no real fear that they might be next. The actual killers are never really seen—just a shadow, or the barrel of a gun—and so the suspense is deliberately kept low key.Baseball fans, and baseball movie fans, will no doubt find something to like here. There is a bit of actual footage at the St. Louis baseball stadium, and quite a few actual ballplayers are used in background roles. Young isn't a completely awful pitcher, but you can see when he's pitching in front of a projected backdrop at the studio. There is one little baseball gaffe, it seems—in the bottom of the 9th, St. Louis needs one run to win, but they post two runs, allowing an extra baserunner to score (it wasn't a home run), which isn't how the rules work today, at least.See this? Not unless you really love baseball.

"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.

Seeing that this film was released in September of 1934 when in real life the St. Louis Cardinals were in a tight pennant race with the New York Giants, it's a wonder that this film didn't give some miscreant the idea of doing in the Dean brothers who were to lead the famous Gashouse Gang to the National League pennant and World Series that year.The Cardinals are in desperate financial straights this year as owner/manager David Landau and daughter Madge Evans put the team in hock to get star pitcher Robert Young. Madge has a thing for Bob, but other players have a thing for Madge.In the meantime the rejuvenated Cardinals are screwing up all kinds of gambling interests who don't want to see the long-shot Cardinals win the pennant. They'll stop at nothing including murder to see the Redbirds of St. Louis don't triumph. Murders of three players do occur before the culprit is found.Nat Pendleton and Ted Healy provide the comic relief as a perpetually quarreling catcher and umpire. Someone did some research for this film or was a fan because legendary umpire Bill Klem who was still active in 1934 had an unbelievable aversion to the name of 'Catfish'. In Healy's case Pendleton calls him 'Crawfish' to get his goat.Some establishing shots will give you a look at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis which is long gone now. Otherwise the cast MGM put together for this film shot it in and around Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, the minor league park of the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League which also now history.The ending of the film is the very least bizarre. Nearly the entire cast is suspect at one point, but the guilty party in this baseball mystery comes right out of left field. No, the left fielder didn't do it.Paul Kelly has a very good role as a sportswriter with a nose for news that serves him well, the scoops he does get in this film.I might have liked the film better had the ending which I can't reveal been so bizarre. It did give one player an opportunity for a grand piece of scenery chewing.