Topper Returns (1941) – full review!

Less than an hour into this movie the character played by Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson (whose mildly racist part as the stereotypical scared Negro chauffeur; I guess Willie Best was unavailable) utters something like “this is getting pretty monotonous” which accurately sums up this third and last of the Topper comedy films. Without Cary Grant (only in the original Topper (1937)) Constance Bennett nor even director Norman Z. McLeod title role actor Roland Young and Billie Burke (along with new addition Joan Blondell) find themselves having to carry a too convoluted and nonsensical script who purpose at least seems less contrived to exhibit its Oscar nominated Special Effects (again by Roy Seawright) than did the second film (Topper Takes a Trip (1938)) in the series. This one directed by Roy Del Ruth was written by Gordon Douglas and Jonathan Latimer with additional dialogue by Paul Girard Smith based on the Thorne Smith characters. Seawright shared his Academy Award nomination with Elmer Raguse whose Sound Recording was also nominated.

The lovely Carole Landis plays Ann Carrington who along with her friend Gail Richards (top billed Blondell) was summoned to return home to her wealthy father’s estate to meet him (H.B. Warner) for the very first time ostensibly before he passes away; he’s tended to by an overbearing physician Dr. Jeris (George Zucco). Naturally there’s also a suspicious looking butler (Trevor Bardette) and a suspicious acting maid (Rafaela Ottiano). A cab driver named Bob (Dennis O’Keefe) had driven the women part of the way there before an attempted assassin had shot out one of the taxi’s tires. Along came the frequently befuddled and henpecked Cosmo Topper (Young) with his chauffeur Eddie (Anderson) who were more or less ‘forced’ to give the ladies a ride to the Carrington Estate reputed to be a haunted mansion; it is a house complete with hidden passageways et al. Topper’s wife Clara (Burke) who’d seen her husband driving past their home to the neighboring Carrington place with Gail on his lap is (as usual) needlessly jealous and later along with her maid Emily (Patsy Kelly who’d played Burke’s maid in director McLeod’s Merrily We Live (1938) also with Bennett) comes to the estate. Somebody is obviously trying to kill Ann but the same black masked assassin murders Gail by mistake instead. Now a ghost that can appear and disappear at will with or without her clothes she then involves a reluctant Topper and the skittish Eddie in the case. Incompetent police Sergeant Rogers (Donald MacBride) and taxi driver Bob who not only wants to be paid but was smitten by the beautiful blonde Ann later arrive and the shenanigans ensue eventually leading to a revelation of true identities and a solved mystery. Hal Roach produced all four comedies referenced in this synopsis though perhaps he was too embarrassed to put his name on this one.

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