Sudden Money

Sweeney Patterson (Charlie Ruggles) is an ordinary boob who suddenly strikes it rich by winning a sweepstakes. And, like so many lottery winners, he and his family overspend like mad until all their good fortune is soon all used up.

This is actually a story close to the truth, as reportedly 70% of all the million dollar plus lottery winners eventually end up declaring bankruptcy. As such, it's a nice lesson on greed and sudden wealth.

So is the film any good? Yes, though I wouldn't call it a comedy...more an allegory or slice of life movie. The acting is fine and the problem a real one, as human nature is, quite often, really awful and stupid.

By the way, listen closely to the conversation between Sweeney and his daughter near the end of the film when he says: "When a girl gets to be as big as you are, spanking is a husband's privilege"!!! My, how times have changed!!

Everyone eats in the Patterson home, but money is always a little tight. So when brother-in-law Broderick Crawford asks Charley Ruggles to come in with him on a sweepstake ticket, Ruggles has to struggle to come up with $1.50. When they win, however, he collects $90,000, and the household is turned upside down. Crawford puts his $60,000 into operating his horse-racing system, Ruggles revives his old college jazz band, wife Marjorie Rambeau revives her painting career, daughter Evelyn Keyes goes to a finishing school where she can be introduced to rich boys, son Billy Lee gets sent to military school, and grandfather Charley Grapewin.... well, he just looks on in amused bemusement. Meanwhile, the audience watches the money vanish.

It's a pleasant programmer directed by Nick Grinde, who had been grinding them out since 1928, sometimes A Pictures for MGM, sometimes for Gower Gulch producers. By the time he hung up the megaphone in 1945 he had helmed 65 decent but mostly unexceptional pictures, and this is one of them. He died in 1979 at the age of 86.