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Topper Returns (1941)
American fantasy comedy mystery thriller.
A fun-loving young woman is murdered after trading bedrooms with her wealthy friend. Her ghost seeks aid from Topper to find the murderer.
As in the prior films, Roland Young plays Cosmo Topper, a mousy banker who gets into trouble because of his ability to see and speak with ghosts, and Billie Burke plays his wife, who is constantly befuddled by his strange antics
This is the third and final installment in the initial series of supernatural comedy films inspired by the novels of Thorne Smith, it succeeds Topper (1937) and Topper Takes a Trip (1938).
Topper Returns was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Special Effects and Best Sound Recording.
In the film, Eddie (played by Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson) says that he’s going back to “Mr. Benny.” This would imply that the character actually IS Rochester, but evidently they couldn’t legally use that name, so they use his real name instead.
When Gail says, “Just like the Pot O’ Gold program”, she is referring to the popular radio show that was on NBC from September 1939 to December 1941. The premise was whoever answered the phone from a number chosen at random would win $1,000 ($17,000 in 2016). Of course calling random numbers out of the phone book would result in a lot of calls not being answered.
| Directed by | Roy Del Ruth |
|---|---|
| Written by | Jonathan Latimer |
| Based on | Characters created by Thorne Smith |
| Produced by | Hal Roach |
| Starring | Joan Blondell Roland Young Carole Landis Billie Burke |
| Cinematography | Norbert Brodine |
| Edited by | James Newcom |
| Music by | Werner R. Heymann |
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Production
company |
Hal Roach Studios
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| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
