CRIMSON PLAYGOER

The most interesting part of "Death on the Diamond" is the question of the coincidence (or was it good picking?) of choosing the St. Louis Cardinals as the heroes of the picture. The story is of the rise of the Cardinals as a pennant threat, and, in connection with the possibility of the real Cardinals grabbing it, is an extremely pertinent one. However, any similar coases there, and the rest of the picture is much baseball mixed with a mystery, novel in setting but stercotyped in detail.

As far as your reviewer can tell, tne baseball played looks authentic, and will probably prove entertaining to baseball fans. As for the mystery, the situation had possibilities. In the rise of the Cardinals to fame, with the betting odds against them, many people would be only too glad to see them lose, so that the picture is practically littered up with suspects. True to all mystery stories, the most innocent appearing and least suspected is the culprit, who finally goes mad, having perpetrated his dastardly deeds with practically unlimited resources, which include a bomb in the form of a pocket watch, a poisoned mustard jar exchanged for the genuine by a hairy hand under cover of the excitement caused by a firecracker (mind you, in the end, only one person is exposed as the murderer) and various other nefarious strategies. The most plausible offenses are the doping of the players' gloves with a chemical intended to injure hands badly, and a bullet fired by the unseen murderer at a player about to make home amidst a roar of applause. Aside from the fact that the player is shot through the heart at a distance of a whole ball field and a street, the idea is pretty good, as no gun could be heard in the roar of a baseball game. At any rate, by the end of the picture the mystery ceased to be the question of who the murderer was, but rather, how he got around so well.

Madge Evans is the beautiful ball club secretary who falls in love with the handsome young star pitcher, Robert Young, who not only comes through to win the series for the Cards, but even gets the murderer with a well-aimed ball. Nat Pendleton and Ted Healey make a pretty good comedy team as catcher and umpire respectively, and there is also the movies' idea of the wise young reporter who solves the mystery as well as the stereotyped dumb detective.