The Day the Bookies Wept

A group of cabbie friends decides to buy their own racehorse. They tap pigeon trainer Ernest Ambrose (Joe Penner) to go to Kentucky. He gets quickly targeted by a con man who sells him an alcoholic horse. The horse is a loser until Ernest's crush Ina Firpo (Betty Grable) overhears the secret of the horse from the con man. It runs best on beer.

I don't know Joe Penner but he was apparently a big depression era comedian. I can certainly see the screwball comedy of it all and Penner's vaudevillian skills. He's doing something like Jim Varney's Ernest. There is nothing wrong with that type of comedy but it's not the most refined. The writing is a bit messy but there is inherent comedy in a drunken horse premise.