Sweepstakes Winner (1939) User Reviews

Fun at the Racetrack

[wes-connors · 6/10 · 3 April 2015]

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

A silly horseracing comedy.

[Art-22 · 4/10 · 4 August 1999]

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.

Manages to be both inane and boring

[AlsExGal · 3/10 · 19 October 2023]

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.

A comedy with two huge strikes against it.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 11 October 2022]

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!

Nitwits Cheating Halfwits

[boblipton · 2/10 · 20 October 2023]

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.

Zany is the word, the word, word, word.

[pronker · 8/10 · 1 April 2015]

Upon reading the listings for this comedy, it seemed that there might be a romantic pairing between Marie Wilson and Allen Jenkins, top billed. But no. Johnnie Davis gets the honor of being Marie's main squeeze, and he's okay in it. This is a fun little comedy, breezing right along with lots of exteriors and it's safe to say that if you like Marie's wide-eyed innocent persona, you'll not be disappointed. Racetrack films have inherent tension, and along with the tension provided by Jenkins as a scheming racetrack hanger-on, nails will be bitten. One scene stands out, whether Marie's or the director's idea, I don't know: on the way to meeting her dream horse, Marie and Jenkins skip side-by-side merrily down to the corral, along with Jenkins' friend Charley Foy and Granville Bates (!) It was spontaneous and cute as a sight gag.

All in all, a 'silly' comedy as another reviewer has said, and rated 8 for excellent use of Marie and Jenkins and the racetrack milieu. Extra appreciation for Bates as a not-very-nice schemer of grandpa vintage, Jerry Colonna as a hilarious cook, and Sam McDaniel as the plot instrument ensuring that Marie's horse win its most important race. More applause for Frankie Burke, a Cagney lookalike who seems to have led a life with Cagney's bravado. At any rate, he resembles and sounds like Cagney to a remarkable degree.

Funny And Adorable

[sambase-38773 · 8/10 · 21 November 2023]

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.