Topper Takes a Trip

Bought for my mother who had lost her copy of this much loved book. She was chuffed to finally have it back in her collection.

If you haven't experienced the Topper movie trio, you just must. We all love them!

This follow-up to the highly successful TOPPER - which was made earlier that year (1939) - picks up where the last film left off. After reestablishing the auto accident which killed the drunken Bennett and Grant in the first film and turned them into ghosts, we are treated (sans Cary Grant) to a hilarious 85 minutes. Clara Topper (Burke) spots Marion Kirby (Bennett) in her husband Cosmo's room. Clara goes to Paris - with Cosmo following - in order to get a divorce because she believes her hen-pecked husband has been seeing another "woman". Unable to explain to Clara that Marion is only a ghost, Cosmo tries to fast-talk Burke into a reconciliaton. Several floating martinis later, Bennett manages to reconcile the couple, and is now able to join her husband in their celestial home. The trick photography by Roy Seawright is astonishing for its day. Cushions which deflate when invisible figures sit on them, cigarettes being smoked in mid-air and pencils writing notes by themselves are all executed with great skill. The sight of the Kirby's dog Skippy - also a ghost - is hilarious when only his tail fails to become invisible or when he bites the ankles of totally flabbergasted men! A third film, TOPPER RETURNS is a surprisingly pleasant diversion from 1941: it stars Joan Blondell as Marion Kirby.

it would do all of us good if more movies were being made today that can make us laugh just by it being funny not by it being an effort to hurt or humiliate a person place or thing. maybe someone someday will look again at these old classics and see how refreshing it was to be entertained not by seeing people or places blowing up or being destroyd but just being allowed to sit back relax and enjoy the fact that what your watching can entertain you your grandmother and your kids all at the same time.

Topper, Scallops and Mrs Topper go to France for a rest, only to be disturbed by the ghostly George and Marion Kirby, and the raucous Colonel and Mrs Hart. This is just a truly funny book, that will have you roaring with laughter on that damed commuter special. Bright and fizzy as a champagne cocktail it never outstays its welcome. I've read it many times and will do so again. Smith was truly an underrated genius and a master of language. Here's a sample from Chapter 1: "Yes, Topper was fond of his wife, but being fond of one's wife and getting along with her were two entirely different matters, as many a husband had found out before him. Perhaps it was not to be expected. Topper did not know. The problem had been too long with him. It was barnacle encrusted." If Smith is an acquired taste, now is the time to acquire him. I have some 11 of his books and in three short years he's come from being someone I'd never heard to being my favourite author. He has many imitators, but forget them, they are not worthy. This is the first Smith novel that I read, and it is still my favourite.