The First (or Best) Baseball Films?

[Sepiatone]

22 hours ago, txfilmfan said:

It's correct.  There's the film version listed in 1958 under Movies, and NBC produced a TV version of Damn Yankees in 1967.

My apologies...

The list WAS long enough to spur one to just skim past most of it.  And think about it....

Not ALL of those baseball movies can BE the "best", can they? and really, only ONE can be the first.    In fact, when these kind of silly arbitrary threads come up, I usually chime in with my usual (and unecessarily )  reminder that with such subjective topics, there IS no "best",  just what some people LIKE the best.  And while DAMN YANKEES is both a baseball movie I like, it's also one of the few MUSICALS I like, but not really my "favorites.  As stated, there's so many I like , singling out just one as a "favorite" is difficult.  Which also means I'm on the fence when it comes to declaring a "best" baseball movie.   

Sepiatone

[Vidor]

One of the strangest films I've ever watched is "Death on the Diamond", a 1934 movie in which a serial killer stalks the St. Louis Cardinals.  Really, that's the story.  There's this one scene where the guy rounding third and heading for home is shot and killed by a sniper...and they keep playing the game.  Not sure it's ever run on TCM.

[Sepiatone]

If they did I missed it because I'm not sure I've ever heard of that movie.  It's listed as a "Mystery/Comedy"  and didn't even come up recently in a discussion of MICKEY ROONEY, who's also in the cast with ROBERT YOUNG.  I wouldn't mind seeing it out of curiosity.

Sepiatone

[Vidor]

On 10/6/2020 at 8:38 AM, Sepiatone said:

If they did I missed it because I'm not sure I've ever heard of that movie.  It's listed as a "Mystery/Comedy"  and didn't even come up recently in a discussion of MICKEY ROONEY, who's also in the cast with ROBERT YOUNG.  I wouldn't mind seeing it out of curiosity.

Sepiatone

I had to find it on an illegal streaming site.  It is very, very strange.

[jamesjazzguitar]

On 10/5/2020 at 11:22 AM, Vidor said:

One of the strangest films I've ever watched is "Death on the Diamond", a 1934 movie in which a serial killer stalks the St. Louis Cardinals.  Really, that's the story.  There's this one scene where the guy rounding third and heading for home is shot and killed by a sniper...and they keep playing the game.  Not sure it's ever run on TCM.

I just read about this film;  yea, rather odd one.    Rooney is in the film as Mickey.     There is one real criminal in the film;  Paul Kelly.     He was sentenced for manslaughter in 1927 and sentenced to 10 years.    If he didn't get out in 25 months he wouldn't even be in this film!

Many fine MGM character actors in the film.   I wonder if MGM filmed The Thin Man at the same time as this one since I see  Edward Brophy and Nat Pendleton (expect here Ed is the cop and Nat a criminal).

This sound like a film that is so bad it is good!

 

 

[Vidor]

21 hours ago, jamesjazzguitar said:

I just read about this film;  yea, rather odd one.    Rooney is in the film as Mickey.     There is one real criminal in the film;  Paul Kelly.     He was sentenced for manslaughter in 1927 and sentenced to 10 years.    If he didn't get out in 25 months he wouldn't even be in this film!

Many fine MGM character actors in the film.   I wonder if MGM filmed The Thin Man at the same time as this one since I see  Edward Brophy and Nat Pendleton (expect here Ed is the cop and Nat a criminal).

This sound like a film that is so bad it is good!

 

 

Ward Bond can be seen briefly as a cop.  Walter Brennan is reportedly the hot dog vendor who sells a hot dog--the killer has poisoned the mustard, of course--but I couldn't tell.

 

It's such a strange film.  "So bad it's good" is probably apt.  It's like someone took an Agatha Christie-style mystery where people get knocked off one by one, and said, "How do I make this a baseball movie?"