Sweepstakes Winner

Marie Wilson shows up with $1000 to buy the grandson of the horse her grandfather trained. Racetrack touts Allen Jenkins and Charlie Foy cheat her of the money, but are too dumb to hold onto it. Instead, they sell Miss Wilson a Sweepstakes ticket which wins, and they sell her the horse she wanted at an obscene price, but are too dumb to hold onto the money. This pattern repeats several times until she marries Johnnie Davis, and the audience can go onto something more pleasant, like jabbing rusty ice picks into their private parts.

Miss Wilson excelled at playing the comic dumb blonde. With a good cast and crew, she was hilarious. Here, with a script that just does the same thing four or five times and ends, she's just annoying. Like many of the Warner Brothers B comedies of this period, it's frantic rather than funny. Even the score by Howard Jackson is frantic and unamusing, unaware of what's happening onscreen. Other performers wasted in this movies include Vera Lewis, Jerry Colonna, Granville Bates, and Eddie Kane.

Naive blonde waitress Marie Wilson (as Jennie Jones) arrives from small-town Athens, Nebraska, intending to buy a racehorse named "Firefly". The beloved nag is descended from a horse owned by her grandfather. Unfortunately, Ms. Wilson gets involved with two con men, smooth-talking Allen Jenkins (as "Tip" Bailey) and his well-suited partner Charley Foy (as "Jinx" Donovan). After she is fleeced, Wilson gets a waitressing job. She is hired after hinting she may be available for dating after hours, on Saturday nights, with romantically-inclined boss Johnnie Davis (as Mark Downe). Wilson's luck changes with a winning "Irish Sweepstakes" ticket. In a highlight, she makes her serving tray fly. Wilson is able to buy "Firefly", but sneaky Mr. Jenkins wants to take further advantage...

Jenkins hits all the marks, and likely adds some of his own, in this otherwise routine comedy. With his distinctive voice, the character actor was dependable, for decades, in this type of role. Wilson is cute and bubbly; at times, you wonder if Judy Garland borrowed some of her delivery. Mugging jockey Frankie Burke (as "Chalky" Williams) has a couple of good scenes and, as a concerned landlady, veteran Vera Lewis gets to share some of her acid-tongue. Among the extras, it's interesting to see John Harron get some lines and screen time. The brother of silent D.W. Griffith "silent" star Robert Harron, John is the fast-talking Narragansett racetrack announcer. Diner chef Jerry Colonna rolls his eyes. All told, director William McGann neatly corrals the second-string cast and crew at Warner Bros.

****** Sweepstakes Winner (5/20/39) William McGann ~ Marie Wilson, Allen Jenkins, Johnnie Davis, Charley Foy

Marie Wilson is toplined in this horseracing comedy, which depends a great deal on her "dumb blonde" character she had in all her roles, and which culminated in her Irma character in the My Friend Irma (1949) movie and the My Friend Irma (1952) TV series. It's the type of comedy I never did like. If it weren't for the ever-reliable Allen Jenkins and his savvy comedy, this movie would be a total bust. I did enjoy Jerry Colonna in his all-too-small role as a chef, and Frankie Burke, mostly because his normal way of talking sounds like James Cagney in all his roles.

Perhaps Marie Wilson was not putting on an act. According to the AFI Catalogue, studio records state that because she couldn't pronounce Jenkins' character name "Xerxes," often saying "Jerky," the writers gave Jenkins the nickname of "Tip." In any case, I'm sure she didn't cry all the way to the bank.

In the 1930s-50s, Marie Wilson essentially played the same character again and again...a ditzy blonde who made Gracie Allen seem like a Nobel Prize winner! Occasionally, this sort of thing can work but often she just comes off as annoying when you see her films today....and she's incredibly annoying in "Sweepstakes Winner".

The story begins with Jennie arriving in the big city and she's looking for Jinx and Tip (Charley Foy and Allen Jenkins). They think she's with the law...but someone ill-advisedly suggested to her that she find the two gamblers so they can help her locate and buy a specific horse, Firefly. Unfortunately, the pair are not only hapless gamblers but really unsavory jerks who repeatedly do things which could get them sent to prison. But Jennie is so brainless that she never notices as they rob her again and again and again.

In addition to Wilson being tiresome, the film also has a major problem when it comes to Jinx and Tip. At times, they seemed to be comic relief...there for fun and silliness. But other times the pair are downright evil....to the point where you cannot like them and you only want to see them in prison. The characters clearly were poorly written and should have just been comic relief...but they wanted them to be silly AND sympathetic AND evil...a combination that just didn't work.

Overall, a very difficult film to watch, as it just is hard to keep watching. My wife kept hoping I'd give up...but I apparently like pain and kept watching up to the ending. And, at least the final scene...well, it worked VERY well and gave me exactly what I wanted!

Jenny Jones (Marie Wilson) comes to town looking for Tip Bailey (Allen Jenkins) and Jinx Donovan. She has a one thousand dollar inheritance and wants to buy Firefly, a broken down nag descended from one of her grandfather's horses, and she's been told these two guys can help. Well, yes they can, if you mean they can help themselves.

At this point these two guys use this young girl to get money for themselves. Then Jenny buys the winning Irish Sweepstakes ticket and ends up with 150 thousand dollars, which is about three million today. She buys firefly and a nice house with grounds for the horse, but still Tip and Jinx are always trying to scam this woman, even out of her last ten thousand dollars. Should she have been more prudent with her money? For sure. But that doesn't give these two the right to continually victimize her and then say that they are her pals.

Along for the ride is Johnny Davis as one of the most unappealing leading men in the history of the world, who wants to marry Jenny but also does not want to be considered a fortune hunter by others. So this movie's characters are either unlikeable thieves (Tip and Jinx), terminally dense (Jenny), or seemingly without purpose to the entire plot (Jenny's boss/boyfriend). It's hard to like a movie without anybody to root for.

This is very much a second feature, something probably made to fill out the evening's bill that people were hardly going to watch in the first place, and that's a good thing.