Here's the trailer for Kill the Umpire, a 1950 comedy starring William Bendix as a baseball fan who becomes an ump and gets mixed up in all sorts of trouble. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon, who went from being a gag man and actor in silent comedies to directing some well-remembered movies like 42nd Street and Knute Rockne, All American. The screenplay was by Frank Tashlin, who went from directing Porky Pig cartoons for Warner Brothers to writing and then directing movies for Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis and others. Kill the Umpire is at about the same level of sophisticated comedy and has a few funny moments. Mostly, it's interesting for William Bendix, who was good in everything he did, including some pretty rotten movies.
This trailer is an ad for a company that sells the movie on DVD but you can see it this weekend on Turner Classic Movies. It runs at 1:15 AM Monday morning on my TV so that's probably 4:15 AM on the East Coast. See if this two minute snippet intrigues you and if so, set the VCR or TiVo.
