Inconsequential, but generally fun little baseball programmer (any better and it wouldn’t work at all), finds Robert Young’s ace pitcher coming on board the struggling Cardinals to help win the pennant and save the team for owner/ manager David Landau and pretty daughter/ office manager Madge Evans. Only problem, a big-time betting syndicate is trying to fix the games for an easy payoff. And when bribes don’t work, they hire a sniper to take out star players right on the field. Yikes! Fear not, the games go on (public safety be damned!), but we do lose the vaudeville-like comedy routines that stud the first half. Meanwhile, the teams chase the pennant and the inept police chase the killer hiding in the stands. Journeyman director Edward Sedgwick, best known for embalming comic greats in unworthy vehicles, proves as unimaginative as a Minor League catcher at calling shots (Milton Krasner lensing in an early credit), with lots of alarmingly poor process work on what must have been M-G-M’s B-unit back-projection stage. On the plus side, the killer reveal is a peach, unexpected and making sense for a change.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Robert Young, who got his first Top-Billing as Leading Man in 1932, then hit a new level of stardom on tv, was still top-billed in his final role in 1988. A record 56 year run.
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