Baseball Double Feature - Kill the Umpire / Safe at Home

Amazon.com

Kill the Umpire and Safe at Home reside cozily on this family-friendly disc, a pair of entertaining movies about baseball-crazy characters with very different reasons for getting close to the game. The 1950 Kill the Umpire stars William Bendix as Bill Johnson, a working man so enamored of America's pastime that he regularly loses jobs because he can't stay out of his favorite New York ballpark when he's supposed to be at the office. Loudly disdainful of all umpires, Bill gets both a blessing and a comeuppance when his father-in-law (Ray Collins), a retired ump, sends him off to umpire school to learn the profession he deserves. After a lot of resistance, Bill understands the basic nobility of being the guy people love to hate despite also being necessary to baseball. The script is by Frank Tashlin, the animation director who would soon have better things to do in the 1950s and beyond, such as directing Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and guiding Jerry Lewis in some of his best vehicles. Indeed, Kill the Umpire, in many ways, looks like a collection of old cartoon gags connected by Bendix's charming performance. But under the sure hand of seasoned director Lloyd Bacon (Knute Rockne All-American), it all comes together nicely.

The 1962 Safe at Home is built around the presence of New York Yankees stars Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, who prove stiff but game playing themselves in the story of a little boy who gets in trouble for overstating his friendship with them. Young Hutch Lawton (Bryan Russell), a motherless child trying hard to help his preoccupied dad (Don Collier) build a business, brags to his Little League team that he knows Maris and Mantle, then sets out on a journey to talk the legendary sluggers into going back with him to meet the team. William Frawley (who also appears in Kill the Umpire) helps keep the pace going as the Yankees' manager, and Patricia Barry is a welcome presence as Mr. Lawton's love interest. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

Kill The Umpire: When his wife threatens to leave him unless he finds steady employment, a baseball fanatic reluctantly accepts a job as a minor league umpire, "the lowest a man can get."

Safe at Home: When a young boy brags of his nonexistent friendship with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, he travels to the Yankees' spring training camp to make his boast come true.

Customer Reviews:

Baseball Joyful Escape.......2007-05-30

When the rat race of modern life gets to you there is always timeless baseball. Unfortunately the modern world has found a way to corrupt the purity of the game. These two movies harken back to the older " purer " days. Yes the movies are dated and abit corny but the values still ring true.

Outstanding!.......2007-05-14

Kill The Umpire is one of William Bendix's best performances, right up there with Life Of Riley.This is a great baseball movie from the other side of the game, the umpire's point of view.
Safe At Home is a great piece of nostalgia for baby boomers. Mantle, Maris, and the rest of the Yankees at their height! What's not to like?

Kill the Umpire.......2007-05-07

Although "Kill the Umpire" is a great Bendix classic, "Safe at Home" is more like a documentary or short that would be included with a good movie instead of billed as a double feature. This DVD is well worth owning just for "Kill the Umpire". Now if they will just put "It Happens Every Spring" with Ray Milland on DVD I will be basball movie satisfied for awhile.

...... STRIKE THREE!!!......YOU'RE.....OUT!!!!!.......2007-04-25

Very funny comedy with William Bendix at his best...wonderful tale about the [10th] player on the field...the umpire[s]...Una Merkel plays Bendix's wife in her own trademark prissy fashion....good clean family entertainment to boot about America's sporting pastime...no wonder actor William Bendix had a looong and varied career before the camera...let us return to yesteryear when the game of baseball was fun and even had heroes to cheer for...not like today's game of greed, etc....SGGT CHRIS SARNO-USMC FMF

At Long Last.......2007-04-22

Kill The Umpire is quite simply, one of the best baseball movies ever made. Ok, its not a Bull Durham or Major League, but look at when it was made!! William Bendix as "Two Call Johnson" is quite simply, hilarious in this role - no one could have played it better. Also featuring Tom DeAndrea (probably misspelled), the duo clicked so well they wound up starring in the TV version of "The Life of Riley." This is - quite simply - a great, underrated movie. Be prepared to laugh until you cry.

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