Cinema: The New Pictures: Jan. 9, 1939

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Topper Takes a Trip (United Artists— Hal Roach). For George Kerby (Gary Grant) and his wife, Marion (Constance Bennett), the consequences of an inexcusable automobile smashup are that, as ghosts, they gain the ability to vanish or materialize whenever they like. In Topper (1937), Marion and George proved themselves indefatigable posthumous cutups: to save their friend Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) from his fussy wife (Billie Burke), Marion materialized herself in Cosmo's hotel room at an improper moment. In Topper Takes a Trip, the sequel, Topper and his wife set out to get a divorce, but neither of them really wants one. It thus becomes Marion's job to effect a reunion.

Marion makes Topper follow his wife to the French Riviera. There, appearing and disappearing with clocklike regularity, she plays tricks with Topper's headgear (see cut), cheats at roulette, removes a pair of bathing trunks from Mrs. Topper's gigolo, and in a climactic scene disappears from a ballroom floor, leaving Topper to dance a sudden solo.

Admirers of the late Thome Smith, from whose books Topper and its sequel were derived, will doubtless be enchanted by the gaiety and humor of these proceedings. Less prejudiced cinemaddicts may feel that the comic possibilities of its trick photography are less inexhaustible than its producers supposed. Once the side-splitting spectacle of doors opening without apparent human aid has lost its novelty, the picture's only surprises are occasional droll antics by Actors Young and Burke, and a few scraps of bright dialogue. Best line: Mrs. Topper's comment on Gallic manners: "Too bad the people in America aren't French."