User Reviews

Marian Nixon had been an early Wampas Baby star (1924) and had a reasonable film career. Talkies gave her a fresh start as her high pitched voice suited her personality and Fox gave her a contract as a threat to keep rebellious Janet Gaynor in line. She played a tough talking chorus girl in "Scarlet Pages" but she didn't convince and was at her best as "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (actually a Gaynor reject). "Sweepstake Annie" seemed tailor made for Nixon - she plays Annie, a secretary, who is at the mercy of meglomaniacal screenwriter Hobart (Ralf Harold) who's hackneyed dialogue causes much mirth ("Are you insinuating that "you dirty rats" is not original"!!) although none of the other workers at the studio are exactly cutting edge.

At home she is the main stay of her free loading family and pals Marge (Inez Courtney) and Bill (Tom Brown) have had enough. There's an underlying theme of "once our ship comes in we will be on easy street" - the ship being the S.S. Sweepstakes!!! Even Annie is not immune, dreaming of the dashing Baron she was introduced to at the studio. She is still disgusted that her shiftless family has spent all the money she has given them on sweepstake tickets!! But the next scene shows commotion in the Foster household - one of them has drawn the winning horse and it turns out to be Annie.

With the winnings comes trouble - Annie tells off her worthless family and decides to spend the money her way - she then reacquaints herself with the Baron!! And with those immortal words "there may be many people who wish to relieve you of your fortune" you know what's coming and with Ivan Lebedeff playing the Baron, it's a sure thing that it is the idle rich and titled that Annie should be wary of. They are scammers who are talking up shares in an non existent diamond mine, Annie is sucked in completely. There is more bad news - at home Annie had walked out leaving the family $25,000 of her winnings, now her dad has come to tell her that the money is gone, spent on clothes, new cars and health treatments and he is so fed up with them he doesn't want to return!!

The best part about this movie is Ralf Harolde's delusional scriptwriter - he was usually more at home with "baddie" roles. Also Wera Engels, an import who didn't fare too well in movies with only one lead in "The Great Jasper" - she was still easy on the eyes.

When good fortune strikes a nice young lady, fortune hunters come out of the woodwork to take advantage of it. Most of it is her own family, ne'er do wells most of them, all using her with the exception of her kind father. The fortunate lady wins the lottery, a sweepstakes ticket where she is given the grand prize after being offered $25,000 for the ticket which she ends up getting more for. Her resentful family isn't happy with the paltry $25,000 she gives them and so she walks out on them, apparently for good. Now living in luxury, she can't escape the fortune hunters (a broke European Baron of course) and her family comes back to throw a wrench into a lavish party she throws.

This is basically an enjoyable low-budget film with Marian Nixon the sweet heroine and Tom Brown the hard-working beau she throws over due to misunderstandings concerning the family. Inez Courtney offers brittle wisecracks as her hard-boiled friend who calls a spade a spade, and tries to point out the truth about her family. As for them, they are a bunch of annoying social climbers, and one of them (Carol Tevis) will annoy you with her voice that makes Butterfly McQueen sound like Ezio Pinza. Made before the screwball comedy onslaught created by the success of "My Man Godfrey", this is actually ahead of the game, and had it the luxury of an "A" studio and "A" cast with "A" writers and director, it may have been "A-OK".

The idea behind "Sweepstake Annie" is quite good. However, it shows its roots as a low-budget film--with some poor acting and very poor writing. Had these been corrected, it would have been a very entertaining and timeless film.

Annie is an adult (at least chronologically speaking) who lives with her parents and siblings. As for this family, most of them are very, very one dimensional--so annoying and transparent that it really impacts on the film. The mother is a high-strung and very selfish hypochondriac, the brother is a free-spending jerk and the sister is a nasty little piece of work as well. Only the dad, who is VERY impotent in this home, has any redeeming value. Even Annie is problematic--she is a horrible enabler and really, really stupid. Had everyone been more subtlety written, it would have been a lot better. But, the family is too awful and Annie is too much of an idiot to make the film work.

On a lark, Annie buys an Irish Sweepstakes ticket. She lucks out--winning the first prize of $150,000 (a HUGE amount back in 1935). Even before she collects, her family of leeches behave as if it's their money and talk about all their plans on spending it. Annie's nice boyfriend is disgusted by this and tells them all off. Now here it makes little sense. Annie breaks up with him BUT then tells her family that she's giving them a small portion (they deserved none) and is keeping the rest and moving out. So, although she agreed with the boyfriend, she kicks him off to the side. And, without anyone in her life who really cares about her, Annie stupidly blunders from her family to strangers who are at least as bad! And, because she is an idiot and never seems to learn her lessons, it's up to the man to come to her rescue (making feminists cringe as they watch).

The bottom line is that I was very frustrated with the film. Annie NEVER learned a darn thing throughout the film. Although she only gave her family $25,000 (a lot back in the day), when they blew through it and tried to move in with her at her new apartment, this milquetoast lady said nothing--letting them run roughshod over her. It was painful to watch, believe me. And, in one of the very last scenes, she then throws away ALL her fortune and it's only saved because he old boyfriend had been working undercover watching over this naive nut! Plus, why would the boyfriend even care?! She treated him badly--and, oddly, this was the ONLY person she treated this way in the film. A big disappointment despite a nice idea for the story.