DEATH ON THE DIAMOND

US, 1932, 71 minutes, Black and white.
Robert Young, Madge Evans, Nat Pendleton, Ted Healy, Paul Kelly, Edward Brophy, Mickey Rooney.
Directed by Edward Sedgwick.

Death on the Diamond is an MGM programmer of the early 1930s. One of the advantages for American audiences is that there is a lot of baseball and the use of contemporary players. This may well be lost on later generations and on non-Americans.

While the film is basically a baseball story, the murder mystery is years worked into the plot, and a lot of shenanigans behind the scenes.

The focus is on Robert Young, star baseball player, hired by a team down on its luck, his relationship with the coach, his cocky assurance, his encounter with the coach’s daughter, Madge Evans, a feisty young woman, advising her father, attracted to the player but making her own stances. In the cast are Nat Pendleton as a top player, Paul Kelly as a journalist investigating, and a very young Mickey Rooney during his usual character, earnest and assured.

There are mobsters in the background, the coach needing his ace player so that his team will win the pennant and he will be able to pay off his debts. His players begin to be killed off – which means that in 71 minutes there has to be a successful romance, a successful winning of the pennant, the defeat of the gangsters and the revelation of the murderer