|
Topper/Topper ReturnsRating:
Release Date: 17 February, 2004 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $9.99 You SAVE: $4.99! Cast: Complete Cast (6 total) |
Topper/Topper Returns Reviews
A classic ... and a sequel
Thorne Smith (1892-1934) was one of the most popular American writers of the Prohibition Era. Like many clever and witty members of his generation, he punched in at the New Yorker Magazine. He wasn't especially successful there and he didn't stay very long but he associated with Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and the usual crowd of assorted, egotistical boozers. His success came with a string of highly popular comic novels. He might be thought of as an American P. G. Wodehouse, although he was not nearly as accomplished a wordsmith as the great British master and his books dealt more in giddy titillation than in high comedy.
As a writer, Smith is best remembered for his novel "Topper" (1926) and its sequel "Topper Takes a Trip" (1932), but no less than five of his books were filmed and one generated a successful television series. The Hollywood versions of his novels were "Night Life of the Gods" (1935, all prints apparently lost), "Topper" (1937), "Topper Takes a Trip" (1939), "Turnabout" (1940) and "I Married a Witch" (1942, based on Smith's final, unfinished novel, "The Passionate Witch"). "Topper Returns" (1941) was not based on anything written by Smith but simply a commercial outing very loosely based on Smith's original set up.
In "Topper," the quiet, repressed and not very happily married banker, Cosmo Topper, finds himself haunted by the ghosts of the recently departed George and Marion Kirby. They are very much a Jazz Age couple and Marion, in particular, maintains some very earthy ideas for such an unearthly creature. In the sequel, "Topper Takes a Trip," Topper's marriage, as usual, is in a rocky state. The Toppers are in Paris in at attempt at reconciliation when George and Marion turn up again.
The movie version of "Topper" is a true classic. If it is not quite a comedy of manners, it is certainly a farce of manners. Of all the films of Thorne Smith's novels, it is the closest to the original, although Constance Bennett's Marion is more toned down and respectable than Smith's. The film boasts a Hollywood dream cast with Bennett, Cary Grant and Roland Young, as well as such stalwarts as Billie Burke, Eugene Pallette and Alan Mowbray. It is also a thing virtually unique in Cary Grant's career, for Roland Young neatly steals every scene they share.
The second movie of the series, "Topper Takes a Trip," is much more loosely based on the original book. Marion appears, but George is nowhere to be found. Cary Grant, I suspect, had no intention of ever again being a second banana.
The third and final film, "Topper Returns," included in this package, brings Roland Young back as Topper but now even Marion has disappeared. Topper is bedeviled by an entirely different feminine ghost. "Topper Returns" is a perfectly competent example of a class of movies that includes Abbot and Costello's "Hold That Ghost," Olsen and Johnson's "Haunted House" and even a couple of Bowery Boys outings. It abandons Smith's Jazz Age sensibilities for the newer, radio-era style of wisecracks with attitude.
Offsetting two inappropriate one-star reviews
Please don't drag ratings of fine movies down with complaints about box labeling and other such peripheral matters--that's a consumer issue, not a film review.
These are excellent films, highly entertaining, humorous, and well scripted and acted. Classics in fact. The print quality is supernaturally excellent, so fine in fact that I'm stunned anyone would gripe about it.
If there's an issue with the close-captioned feature a concerned purchaser should direct a complaint to the manufacturer and/or distributor. Simply informing us of the problem as part of a sensible review of the film proper would have been appreciated.
More Customer Reviews (26 total)
You like Topper/Topper Returns?
|
© 2004, 2005, 2006 DVD Booty | Don't Plunder Our Cache of Booty, Matey!
Hosting made possible by donations from Debt Elimination Challenge, credit card debt, and fast payday loans
