Fireman, Save My Child

The grand mouth of mirth himself, Joe E. Brown, gets to show off his astounding athleticism as well as his vaudevillian chops in this sports comedy about a pitcher who brings the heat while looking to douse the fire. Smokey Joe Grant (Brown), contented resident of rural Roseland, Kansas, is a full-time firefighter and a part-time pitcher for the local ball club. Although his skills on the mound are extraordinary, baseball is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition for Joe, and it's fighting fires that captures his concerns. Fires and his small-town sweetheart, Sally (Evalyn Knapp), that is. But when the big league comes calling in the form of the St. Louis Cardinals, Sally convinces Smokey Joe to sign so he can better sell his invention, a pitchable extinguisher ball, and save enough scratch for them to get hitched. While small-town Smokey pitches the Cards to the pennant, he falls prey to a glamorous grifter (Lilian Bond).

• classics
• sports