Sweepstakes Winner

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!

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 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.

I'm not a big fan of horse racing movies. They're just too predictable. Guess who wins? Haha. Besides, I've been bitten by horses and kicked by horses and let me tell you horses can really bite hard and they can really kick hard, too. Luckily, the horse racing is kept to a minimum in this movie. That's just fine with me, but if you want to watch this movie mainly to see a bunch of horse racing you're going to be disappointed.

What this movie does have, thank goodness, is lots of comedy and an absolutely adorable main actress, Marie Wilson. She is one of a kind. 100 percent pure adorability. She puts the "bumpkin" in country bumpkin in this movie. She wins some money in the sweepstakes and there's nothing funnier than a country bumpkin winning money. The comedy is easy to achieve from there. Don't we all love country bumpkins? Especially when they're pretty and adorable? I should say so. And of course with her money she wants to buy a horse. A race horse. Uh-oh, here we go. Country bumpkin. Pretty girl. Money. Race horse. Sounds like the recipe for a movie to me!

The actor who plays the jockey who rides the big horse in the big race is a look-a-like and sound-a-like for Jimmy Cagney. I don't know if that was on purpose or just an accident. Now that I think about it I think it was on purpose. At least I hope it was because it works beautifully. It kept making me laugh.

Not much more to say I guess without spoiling the movie. It's fun. It's funny. And it's adorable. 8 stars.

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.