Film review: Topper Returns (1941)

This is a sequel to the original Topper, which starred Cary Grant, but which is pretty much unavailable anywhere.  This one was viewable for free (with adverts) via Roku, so we watched it.  No Cary, but it does have Joan Blondell, of whom we are very fond in our household (as was Jimmy Cagney, a frequent co-star), playing her usual sassy type.  This one has a lot of story getting in the way of the plot, so quick summary.  Topper is actually an older, rather meek gentleman (played by Roland Young) who discovered he had the ability to see ghosts in the original (Grant and his wife were jet-set types who died young and sought to help him out).  In this version he only appears after the first five minutes or so, when he is stopped in the road by Joan Blondell's Gail and Carole Landis's Ann Carrington, who are without transport because a shadowy figure shot out the tire of the taxi they were taking to Ann's father's estate.  The taxi driver went to get help, but the girls decide to hitchhike, and after causing an accident when Gail hikes up Ann's skirt a bit (shades of Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night), they simply sit on their suitcases in the road.  Along comes Cosmo Topper, driven by his chauffeur, Eddie Anderson who is most famous for being Jack Benny's valet Rochester in his long-running show (he even says he's going back to "Mr. Benny" at one point in the film).  The girls climb in, Gail sitting on Topper's lap (much to his consternation), and they get driven to the Carrington place, much to Eddie's discomfort, as it looks haunted.  As they drive past Topper's house, his wife, played by Billie "Glinda in Wizard of Oz" (her voice is unmistakeable) Burke spies Gail sitting on his lap and is seized with jealousy for most of the rest of the movie (when she isn't being humorously ditzy).  Anyway, the Carrington place is amazing, but Ann's father, whom she hasn't seen since she was very little (her mother died in a mine accident (!) but wanted her to be raised in China) appears very frail (and is so, according to the sinister doctor who attends him) but tells her that tomorrow, when she becomes 21, all this will be hers.  Then she and Gail (who is a friend who was also living in China, but you wouldn't know it) are shown to their rooms.  Gail fancies Ann's, though, and they swap.  This proves fatal for Gail (this is not a spoiler - this happens very early on) and she is killed in the night by the same shadowy figure who shot out their tire.  At this, she floats out of the window and sails over to Topper's house nearby.  

This calls for an aside on this film's view of ghosts.  1. I assume that Topper is special in being able to see ghosts, but it might just be that he's the only one that they want to appear to, because not only can Eddie hear Gail, he can see her too.  2. After this one flight that Gail takes, she is ground-bound.  Not only that, but she can't go through walls, and if she's under a blanket, you can see her shape.  However, she can make herself invisible or visible at will.  This includes any clothes that she puts on, because, once she forces Cosmo to drive her back to the Carrington house, the rest of the movie is spent there, attempting to solve her murder, and she uses the opportunity to change out of the nightgown she died in and into some sensible sleuthing gear.  Other characters in the film: besides the sinister doctor, there is a sinister housekeeper (whose fate is strikingly unresolved at the end of the film - you'll see what I mean) whom the bumbling but loud-mouthed inspector who arrives midway through the film calls "Rebecca," no doubt in reference to the creepy housekeeper Mrs. Danvers in the Hitchcock film of the previous year.  Oh, and there is also the taxi-driver, who shows up later that night wanting to get his cab fare, 

and wondering why the girls didn't wait for him.  Well, Cosmo finds Gail's corpse, but it is gone by the time the household catches him trying to phone the police and he tells them about it.  

Much shenanigans ensue, with Eddie and Mrs. Cosmo offering most of the comic relief 

(along with the blustery late-arriving inspector), including Eddie's repeated run-ins with a seal in the underground waterway beneath the house that exits to the sea.  Meanwhile the taxi driver and Ann provide the romance, and the evil black-clad assassin, who knows all the secret passages and revolving bookcases (and trapdoors) that the house is riddled with, provides the excitement.  

You'll be pleased to know that Gail is avenged at the end, although Eddie is not so pleased to encounter both Gail and her murderer's ghostly forms.  In summary: slight, but packed with seasoned performers (forgot to mention Mrs. Cosmo's assistant/housekeeper Emily (Patsy Kelly) who I was sure I recognized (it must have been from The Cowboy and the Lady) who all do their jobs with great aplomb.