By Richard Harland Smith
The Winning Ticket
Brief Synopsis
A barber tries to find the winning lottery ticket he hid from his moralistic wife.
Cast & Crew
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Charles F. Riesner
Director
Leo Carrillo
Joe Tomasello
Louise Fazenda
Nora [Tomasello]
Ted Healy
Eddie [Dugan]
Irene Hervey
Mary [Tomasello]
James Ellison
Jimmy
Film Details
Genre
Comedy
Drama
Release Date
Feb
8,
1935
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp.
Distribution Company
Loew's Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 10m
Film Length
7 reels
Synopsis
The Tomasellos are a poor Italian immigrant family who live in New York. At the urging of his brother-in-law Eddie, and against the wishes of his wife Nora, who objects to gambling, barber Joe Tomasello purchases an Irish sweepstakes ticket. While listening to the sweepstakes drawing on the radio, Eddie faints when Joe's ticket number is announced as the $150,000 first prize winner. Instead of telling Joe right away that he has won, Eddie tries to finagle a percentage of the winnings by ingratiating himself with the winner. Before he can succeed, though, Jeffries, a representative from Lloyd's Insurance Company of London, brings Joe the good news and offers to buy the winning ticket for $10,000 so that he can gamble the money on a bigger win. Joe accepts the offer, but complications arise when Eddie remembers that he gave his lawyer, Tony, the ticket to hold. Eddie plans to get the ticket from Tony, but in the meantime, spends most of Joe's money on a horseracing bet. After their horse, "Salome," wins, Joe and Eddie go to Tony's to get the ticket, but are shocked when they discover that Joe's baby, Mickey, was the last one seen with it. Desperate to find the missing ticket, Tony, Eddie and Joe try to get Mickey to show them what he did with the jar that contained the winning ticket. When the baby points to some loose flooring in the living room, they take apart the floor and dig a huge hole, but come up with nothing. Tony, who faces imprisonment for his outstanding debts, worries about the lost ticket and sees that their only solution is to go to Ireland by boat and try to convince the sweepstakes officials that Joe had purchased the winning ticket. Eddie, who is afraid of ships, is tricked onto the boat by Joe, but, along with the Tomasellos, he is ejected from the steamer when he is discovered to be a stowaway. Later, when the men see Mickey inserting a piece of paper into the mouth of a ceramic parrot, they think that it is a sign that the toddler has hidden the ticket inside one of his father's many ceramic parrot pieces. Tony, Eddie and Joe, with the help of the man who sold the remaining forty-five parrots for Joe, track down the owners of the ceramic birds. One of the owners is Mr. Powers, who, when visited by the three men, watches in disbelief as they destroy his parrot and find nothing. Tony and Joe are then jailed for their actions. When Nora, with her baby, visits them in jail, she brings Joe his guitar to help him pass the time. However, Nora and Joe soon quarrel, and when she breaks the guitar over his head, the missing ticket emerges from the broken guitar, and Joe suddenly remembers that the baby had been playing with the instrument. Having rescued themselves from their troubles, Nora, Joe and Tony go to "Salome's" stock farm and ride their winning thoroughbred.
Director
Charles F. Riesner
Director
Cast
Leo Carrillo
Joe Tomasello
Louise Fazenda
Nora [Tomasello]
Ted Healy
Eddie [Dugan]
Irene Hervey
Mary [Tomasello]
James Ellison
Jimmy
Luis Alberni
Tony
Purnell B. Pratt
Mr. Powers
Akim Tamiroff
Guiseppe
Betty Jane Graham
Noreen [Tomasello]
Billy Watson
Joey [Tomasello, Jr.]
Johnny Indrisano
Lefty Costello
Ronald Fitzpatrick
Mickey [Tomasello]
Frank Moran
Bartender
Lee Phelps
Bookmaker
William Stack
Jeffries
Montague Shaw
President of insurance co.
Jane Meredith
Traveler
Larry Steers
Traveler
Milton Owen
Purser
Sherry Hall
Officer
Bud Harris
Valet
Wilbur Mack
Banker
Charles Dunbar
Still cameraman
Wally Maher
Sound man
James P. Burtis
Newsreel man
Sam Flint
Captain
Clara Blandick
Aunt Maggie
George Guhl
Turnkey
Al Hill
Bookie
Clarence Hummel Wilson
Dolan
Crew
Charles [g.] Clarke
Photography
Jack Cummings
Producer
Cedric Gibbons
Art Director
Robert Pirosh
Original Story
Charles F. Riesner
Producer
Richard Schayer
Screenwriter
George Seaton
Original Story
Douglas Shearer
Recording Director
Ralph Spence
Screenwriter
David Townsend
Art Director Associate
Edwin B. Willis
Art Director Associate
Hugh Wynn
Film Editor
Film Details
Genre
Comedy
Drama
Release Date
Feb
8,
1935
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp.
Distribution Company
Loew's Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 10m
Film Length
7 reels
Articles
The Winning Ticket -
Sweepstakes and lotteries have proved to be reliable plot motivators in Hollywood, with ticket-holders in films as diverse as Erich von Stroheim's Greed (1925), John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), William Castle's Mr. Sardonicus (1961), and Mel Stuart's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) driven to the worst possible behavior in the expectation of the best possible outcome. Set within the immigrant community of New York City before World War II, the MGM comedy The Winning Ticket (1935) stars Leo Carrillo as a poor Italian barber whose life changes unexpectedly with the purchase of a winning lottery ticket. Complications arise when Carrillo's ne'er-do-well Irish brother-in-law (Three Stooges creator Ted Healy) loses the ticket, prompting a madcap search through the city (with the smashing of dozens of ceramic parrots, one of which may or may not contain the missing ticket, anticipating the business of the Eiffel Tower paperweights in Ealing's The Lavender Hill Mob [1951]) on the way to a redemptive wrap-up. Director Charles Reisner had honed his comic craft as a gag writer and assistant to Charlie Chaplin on The Kid (1921) and The Gold Rush (1925) and later directed such time-tested funnymen as Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers - no surprise that he orchestrates the slapstick shenanigans of The Winning Ticket with comic aplomb.
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
The Winning Ticket -
Sweepstakes and lotteries have proved to be reliable plot motivators in Hollywood, with ticket-holders in films as diverse as Erich von Stroheim's Greed (1925), John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), William Castle's Mr. Sardonicus (1961), and Mel Stuart's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) driven to the worst possible behavior in the expectation of the best possible outcome. Set within the immigrant community of New York City before World War II, the MGM comedy The Winning Ticket (1935) stars Leo Carrillo as a poor Italian barber whose life changes unexpectedly with the purchase of a winning lottery ticket. Complications arise when Carrillo's ne'er-do-well Irish brother-in-law (Three Stooges creator Ted Healy) loses the ticket, prompting a madcap search through the city (with the smashing of dozens of ceramic parrots, one of which may or may not contain the missing ticket, anticipating the business of the Eiffel Tower paperweights in Ealing's The Lavender Hill Mob [1951]) on the way to a redemptive wrap-up. Director Charles Reisner had honed his comic craft as a gag writer and assistant to Charlie Chaplin on The Kid (1921) and The Gold Rush (1925) and later directed such time-tested funnymen as Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers - no surprise that he orchestrates the slapstick shenanigans of The Winning Ticket with comic aplomb.
By Richard Harland Smith
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Although Hollywood Reporter pre-release news items and production charts credit Robert Hopkins with the original story, and list Clarence Muse, Tom McGuire, Jim Farley, Curley Wright and Robert Homans in the cast, their participation in the film has not been confirmed. Background scenes were filmed at the Saratoga racetrack in Saratoga Springs, New York.
