THRILLING RACING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 141, 6 February 1932, Page 7

THRILLING RACING

"SWEEPSTAKES" IS FIRST - CLASS TURE DRAMA. COMING TO MAJESTIC. They're off! Thirty thousand racing fans shout for their favourite. "Sleepy" Jones, hanging over the paddoek rail, squints a knowing, although anxious, eye. Up in the stands a feminine heart palpitates for the little 115-pound dynamo of grit and muscle who is attempting a racing comehaek from the gutter. "Wally" Weber, who eouldn't hide behind a corckscrew, thumbs the "bookie's" tickets that will mean a crooked clean-up. Steel-muscled horse-legs take the first turn. Now hoofs pound at the eighth pole. Who's in front? Who's winning? .... Cairn yourseves, movie fans! That's "Buddy" Doyle riding, and "Buddy"

is Eddie Quillan. "Sleepy" Jones is Jimmy Gleason. Weber is Lew Cody. The little girl all a-flutter in the grandstand is Marion Nixon. And the picture is "Sweepstakes," RKO Pathe's exciting melodrama of the turf, which opens at the Majestic Theatre on February 13. The actual background of three famous racetracks on the Coast and in Mexico — • Agua Caliente, Tia Juana and Tanforan — helped create the illusion of a real race. The story is fresh, thrilling, and the performance of Eddie Quillan as the gritty little joekey is the best thing he's done on the screen so far. "Sweepstakes" is a refreshing return to the unsophisticated, honest drama, and Albert Rogell and Lew Lipton are to be commended for their good work in direction and storywriting, respectively. "Sweepstakes" is a Charles R. Rogers production for RKO Pathe.