Kill the Umpire

Kill the Umpire is a 1950 baseball comedy film starring William Bendix and Una Merkel, directed by Lloyd Bacon and written by Frank Tashlin.

Bendix two years earlier had portrayed baseball player Babe Ruth in the biographical film The Babe Ruth Story. One of the ballplayers in this picture is played by Jeff Richards, billed as Richard Taylor, a minor-league ballplayer before becoming an actor.

Plot
Bill Johnson is a former baseball player whose fanatical devotion to the game has cost him several jobs. He remains steadfast in one thing: he hates umpires. Matters are complicated by the fact that his father-in-law Evans is a retired umpire.

During a period of unemployment, needing a job to support his loyal wife Betty and two daughters, Johnson is forced by his father-in-law to matriculate in an umpire school. Johnson initially tries to get himself expelled by school director Jimmy O'Brien, but after being called upon to umpire a children's game, he eventually comes to dedicate himself to his new job. He becomes an ump in the minor leagues, where blurred vision, caused by using the wrong eyedrops, causes him to see everything twice, earning him a nickname as "Two-Call" Johnson.

While on the train to umpire an important playoff series, gangsters attempt to bribe him, but to no avail. When he calls a visiting team's player safe at home plate, the crowd accuses him of dishonesty, not aware that the catcher actually dropped the ball when the runner slid into home plate, leading to a near-riot during which the home team's catcher is knocked out cold. Johnson must disguise himself as a woman, and engage in several madcap subterfuges, to get to an important game on time, but his reputation is restored when the injured catcher recovers and praises him for his honesty as an umpire. The crowd accepts this, although quickly reversing its opinion again after Johnson, inevitably, makes another call they do not like.

The film's climax is a manic chase scene, scripted by animator and future Jerry Lewis director Frank Tashlin.

Cast

 * William Bendix as Bill Johnson
 * Una Merkel as Betty Johnson
 * Ray Collins as Jonah Evans
 * Gloria Henry as Lucy Johnson
 * Jeff Richards as Bob Landon (billed as Richard Taylor)
 * Connie Marshall as Suzie Johnson
 * William Frawley as Jimmy O'Brien
 * Tom D'Andrea as Roscoe Snooker
 * Vernon Dent as Telephone Company Official (uncredited)
 * Emil Sitka as Irate Baseball fan (uncredited)
 * Henry Kulky as Baseball fan (uncredited)

Both D'Andrea and Kulky (as the irate boot-throwing spectator) would later co-star with Bendix on his popular, long-running The Life of Riley TV series.