A fun-loving couple, finding that they died and are now ghosts, decide to shake up the stuffy lifestyle of a friend of theirs.
Topper is an American comedy film starring Constance Bennett and Cary Grant which tells the story of a stuffy, stuck-in-his-ways man, Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) who is haunted by the ghosts of a fun-loving married couple.
A fun-loving couple, wealthy Long Island socialites
George
and Marion
Kerby (Cary Grant & Constance Bennett), return
from the dead after
a fatal car accident in their flashy roadster to help
a henpecked
husband
Cosmo Topper (Roland Young). Cosmo is the Wall Street
bank president
where
George is on the board of directors, as the largest
stockholder. The
change
of life for the middle-aged Cosmo comes when over his
overbearing wife
Clara's (Billie Burke) objection, he buys George's
reconditioned
convertible
speedster. He's soon haunted by the ghosts of George
and Marion, who
want
to do Topper a good deed so they can leave the Earth
and be free from
their
state of limbo. Their good deed involves loosening up
the staid banker.
The friendly ghosts are sometimes visible and
sometimes can't be seen
but
can be heard. Their carefree ways supposedly make
Cosmo a better man
and
brings him closer to his wife, but also brings chaos
to his once
orderly
life.
 |
| The wound him up and let him run...Riot! |
With a fine cast and some good and occasionally impressive special
effect camera tricks, this is a decent fantasy feature. It makes its
main gimmick work well, while also telling a light but interesting
story about the main characters. The idea of ghosts returning to
interact with the living is a simple and familiar idea, but in this
movie it works pretty well.
The 'ghost' effects are very good technically for their time, and they
are used effectively in the story. There is a lot of variety in the
various visual effects, and they show some clever ideas and careful
planning. Only a couple of times do the seams show.
Roland Young is the perfect Topper - henpecked, confused, and a nervous
wreck. He's a man dying to break free of his shackles, and he's always
envied George and Marion's lifestyle, even though it killed them. His
frustration and unhappiness make him sympathetic, and the audience is
with him all the way.
 |
| You shouldn't drink & drive. |
Topper is one of those films that probably could do with a remake. If you've never seen this movie, treat yourself. From one spooky set up to the next, Topper is a cure for the blues, be
it fisticuffs with cops, or turning a hotel inside out, it is quite
simply a delicious piece of 30s comedy pie.
 |
| Constance Bennett Showing a man a good time was her daily "Good Deed" |
Trivia:
The fancy finned-back car driven by the Kerbys was custom built by the
Bohman & Schwartz Co. using a 1936 Buick Roadmaster chassis.
Originally the producers had in mind to use a coffin-nosed Cord, but it
wasn't large enough. In the custom-made Buick there were special
compartments for camera equipment, etc. The Buick resembles a Cord, but
the supercharger pipes on the side were just decorations (a Cord comes
with an actual supercharger). After filming the Buick was bought by the
Gilmore Oil Co. and was used for promotional purposes for many years. It
was updated in 1954 with a Chrysler Imperial chassis and drive train.
The car driven by Cosmo Topper is a 1936 Lincoln Model K.
Arthur Lake, the elevator boy/bellhop, went on to star as Dagwood Bumstead in the "Blondie" movies and TV series.
The commercial and critical success of this film led director Norman Z. McLeod to include much of the principal cast in his next film, Merrily We Live (1938). Constance Bennett, Alan Mowbray, and Billie Burke
all received major parts in McLeod's next work, with Mowbray reprising
his role as a stuffy butler and with Burke again playing the matriarchal
head of a household.
This was the first black & white film to be "colorized" in 1985.
Second film appearance of Lana Turner; she was uncredited and had no lines.
 |
| Oh, George, I can see right through you. |
This is the first of three films that Hal Roach adapted from a Thorne Smith novel.
The easiest part of the shoot for Cary Grant and Constance Bennett was the many special effects scenes, which only required them to record their lines while special effects artists made the various items they moved, from fountain pens to a pair of frilly lace panties, appear to move on their own.
In addition to the stress of her career problems, Constance Bennett was dealing with her sister Barbara's alcoholism, which left her short-tempered on the set. She also was frequently late.
The entrance to the Seabreeze Hotel, where Topper and the ghosts check in for a little fun, was filmed in front of Bullocks Department store on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
A production still for the film included Natalie Moorhead in the film, but she was not in the viewed print and her role may have been cut from the released film.
Hal Roach immediately wanted Cary Grant to play George Kerby, but he had difficulty getting the actor to agree to play the part, since Grant was concerned about the supernatural aspects of the story. Assurance from Roach that the screwball aspects of the story would be played up - plus a fee of $50,000 - were sufficient to convince Grant to do the film.
Songwriter and pianist Hoagy Carmichael makes an uncredited cameo appearance, early in the film, as the piano player in the sequence where George and Marion are on the town the night before the meeting at the bank. He introduces the song "Old Man Moon", which is sung by George and Marion (It's also sung later by Three Hits and a Miss). It was Carmichael's screen debut. As the couple leave the bar, George says "(Good) night and Carmichael replies "So long, see ya next time."
The music in the scene where the bell boy trips over the curb as topper leaves the hotel and again as topper "rises" from the dead, the background music heard is the eight note theme later used in the Harry Potter series.
